SB 


517 


EMERSON 
AS  A  POET 


ARTOTYPE,        E.     BltRSIADT,     N.    Y. 


EMERSON  AS  A  POET 


BY 


JOEL  BENTON 


RlEN  DE  CE  QUI    NE    TRANSPORTE    PAS    N'EST    POESIE. 
LA  LYRE  EST   UN   INSTRUMENT  AILE. — Joubert. 


NEW-YORK 
M.   L.   HOLBROOK  &  CO. 


COPYRIGHT,  1883,  BY  JOEL  BENTON. 


SBemt  be3  IDi^ter*  SWityte  gefjt, 
£alte  fte  ntc^t  ein! 
Denn  tt>er  einmal  un$  serftefjt, 
2Birb  un3  audj  serjeityn. 


The  words  of  a  good  poet,  even  when  we  do  not 
apprehend  their  full  meaning,  pour  a  stream  of 
sweet  nectar  upon  the  soul. 

From  the  Hindu  of  the  Sarngadhara  Paddhati. 

There  is,  indeed,  a  certain  low  and  moderate  sort 
of  poetry  that  a  man  may  well  enough  judge  by 
certain  rules  of  art;  but  the  true,  supreme,  and 
divine  Poesy  is  above  all  the  rules  of  reason.  Who 
ever  discovers  the  beauty  of  it,  with  the  most 
assured  and  most  steady  sight,  sees  no  more  than 
the  quick  reflection  of  a  flash  of  lightning.  This  is 
a  sort  of  poetry  that  does  not  exercise,  but  ravishes 
and  overwhelms  our  judgment. 

Montaigne. 


305571 


SDefcication, 


TO 

WALTER    H.  POMEROY, 


WHOSE    EARLY  AND 
CONSTANT  APPRECIATION  OF 
EMERSON    AND    OF    THE    HIGHEST 
MINDS  MAKES  THIS  ASSOCIATION  APT,  EVEN 
IF     HALF     A     LIFE-TIME      OF     GENEROUS     FRIEND 
SHIP     WERE     NOT    ALSO    IN    THE     SCALE,    I 
DEDICATE,  WITH   ESPECIAL   PLEAS 
URE,    THIS    LITTLE 
VOLUME. 


J.  B. 


PREFATORY    NOTE. 

TT  seems  necessary  to  say  that  this  essay 
was  written  over  a  year  and  a  half 
ago,  and  is  given  here  substantially  in  the 
form  that  it  then  had.  No  essential  change 
has  been  made  to  accommodate  it  to  Mr. 
Emerson's  death,  or  to  do  justice  to  the  mul 
titude  of  sayings  that  this  event  elicited.  If 
but  little  has  been  added,  a  few  points  have 
been  slightly  expanded  while  preparing  it 
for  the  press.  The  portion  read  at  Concord, 
on  the  day  set  apart  to  Emerson  by  the 
"  School  of  Philosophy"  was  a  fragment, 
only  a  brief  synopsis  of  which  was  furnished 
for  the  book  representing  the  lectures  of  that 
body. 


8 

For  the  privilege  of  copying  so  liberally 
from  Mr.  Emerson's  poems,  I  am  indebted 
to  the  courtesy  of  Messrs.  Houghton,  Mifflin 
6r>  Co.;  and  to  Mr.  C.  If.  Brainard,  of 
Washington,  for  the  right  to  reduce  for  an 
appropriate  frontispiece  the  admirable  litho 
graph  of  Emerson,  which  had  its  origin  in 
a  photograph  owned  by  Theodore  Parker, 
and  which  was  Mr.  Parker 's  favorite  picture 
of  this  author.  To  many  others,  also,  no 
other  portrait  of  Emerson  recalls  him  so  per 
fectly  in  his  best  attittide,  as  he  was  in  his 
prime. 

I  am  sure,  whatever  judgment  this  essay 
may  provoke,  that  the  addition  of  Mr.  Ken 
nedy1  s  Concordance  to  Mr.  Emersoris  poetry, 
which  he  has  kindly  permitted  me  to  make, 
will  prove  a  welcome  feature  in  this  offering. 

J.  B. 

Amenia,  N.  K,  Oct.  f,  1882. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

PORTRAIT 

DEDICATION 5 

PREFATORY  NOTE 7 

EMERSON  AS  A  POET 1 1 

APPENDIX 89 

CONCORDANCE  TO  EMERSON'S  POETRY 91 

EMERSON  AS  A  MAGAZINE  TOPIC 131 


MR.  EMERSON  AS  A  POET. 


I  hold  it  of  little  matter 

Whether  your  jewel  be  of  pure  water, 

A  rose  diamond  or  a  white, 

But  whether  it  dazzle  me  with  light. 

EMERSON. 

Charm  is  the  glory  which  makes 
Song  of  the  poet  divine. 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 


says,  in  his  "Imagi 
nary  Conversations,"  that  "  a 
rib  of  Shakespeare  would  have 
made  Milton  —  the  same  portion  of  Milton, 
all  poets  born  ever  since."  Something 
of  this  largeness  and  intensity  —  this  su 
premacy  of  genius  —  belongs  to  Emerson. 


12 

So  dense  and  pervading  is  his  peculiar 
and  individual  force,  it  might,  if  properly 
distributed,  be  made  to  equip  and  light  a 
literary  constellation.  We  must  go  back 
to  Shakespeare  and  Milton,  among  English 
names,  to  find  an  equally  enormous  endow 
ment.  If  it  does  not  stream  in  versatility, 
it  towers  in  commanding  altitude.*  Among 
his  contemporaries  we  may  name,  to  be  sure, 
notable  men  of  a  more  composite  order — 
but  no  personality  at  once  so  compact,  so 
essence-like,  so  opulent,  so  strong.  While 
his  power  is  well  authenticated  in  one 
direction  by  all  who  are  competent  to 
speak  of  it,  it  is  curious,  and  not  quite 
explicable,  that  the  current  literary  criti 
cism  conspires  to  go  so  completely  around 
his  poetry.  It  leaves  it,  indeed,  in  almost 

*  Dr.  Bartol  says  :  "  If  Shakespeare  or  Goethe  be 
the  Mont  Blanc,  Emerson  is  a  neighboring  Aiguille 
of  lesser  breadth,  but  well-nigh  equal  height." 


solitary  neglect — surrounds  it  as  if,  among 
the  high  products  of  literary  expression 
in  this  century,  it  alone  should  be  reserved 
as  an  island  for  silence.  Let  us  admit  at 
the  outset,  if  you  will,  that  the  fortitude 
of  his  strain  —  as  Matthew  Arnold  says  of 
the  verses  of  Epictetus — "is  for  the  strong, 
for  the  few;  even  for  them  the  spiritual 
atmosphere  with  which  it  surrounds  them 
is  bleak  and  gray" — and  that 

"The  solemn  peaks  but  to  the  stars  are  known, 
But  to  the  stars  and  the  cold  lunar  beams; 
Alone  the  sun  arises,  and  alone 

Spring  the  great  streams." 

But  the  best  minds  concede  the  bril 
liancy  of  Emerson's  thought,  and  find 
delight  in  its  acuteness  and  depth.  They 
accept  his  power  in  prose, — and  this  prose, 
unmatchable  and  radiant,  is  itself  better 
poetry  than  the  verses  of  many  reputable 
singers.  They  do  not  refuse  to  rate  him 


«4 

as  a  philosopher,  and  almost  as  a  prophet ; 
but,  so  far  as  concerns  any  adequate  state 
ment,  they  overlook  and  pass  by  his  over 
whelming  preponderance  as  a  poet.  There 
are  those  who  think  Carlyle's  often  ex 
pressed  and  notorious  dislike  of  modern 
verse-making  (does  this  spring  from  his 
own  failure  to  succeed  in  it  ?),  resulting  in 
certain  proffered  advice,  and  joined  with 
Emerson's  almost  maiden  modesty  as  an 
aspirant,  led  the  latter  some  time  since 
into  the  habit  *  of  disparaging  his  own  great 
gift.  So  that  we  have  the  singular  phe 
nomenon  of  the  author  of  the  most  pure, 
aerial  and  divinely  souled  poetry  since 
Shakespeare's  music  became  measured  and 
still,  and  the  literary  world  together,  fall- 


*  An  anecdote,  giving  some  pleasant  badinage 
between  Emerson  and  an  interviewer  on  this 
point,  is  gracefully  told  by  a  writer  in  Scribner's 
Monthly  for  February,  1880. 


ing  into  a  condition  of  mind  which,  except 
casually  and  fragmentarily,  ignores  its  va 
lidity  and  almost  disputes  its  existence. 
But  can  it  be  believed  that  Shakespeare 
inwardly  did  not  know  he  was  Shakes 
peare,  or  that  Emerson  was  really  in 
doubt  about  his  own  marvelous  vision 
and  melody  ? 

I  purpose,  in  a  brief  paper,  not  by  any 
means  to  make  up  the  deficiency  I  lament, 
but  to  offer  a  few  cursory  suggestions  which 
may  prompt  others  who  have  the  truth  in 
view,  and  the  requisite  fitness,  to  show  the 
courage  of  their  convictions  on  this  subject. 

One  need  not  go  far,  of  course,  to  see 
why  Emerson's  poetry  is  not  accepted  and 
popular  in  the  way  that  Longfellow's  or 

— ,  ^••n     i  i— -  • 

Whittier's  is ;  for  he  does  not  aim  to  medi 
ate  to  the  average  mind,  and  will  not  ad 
dress  the  careless  and  irresolute  thought. 
He  shuns  the  dramatic  form, —  omits  the 


i6 

shining  thread  of  narrative, — and  cannot 
stoop  to  tickle  an  ephemeral  and  idle 
fancy.  These  things  are  well  to  do,  and 
honorable  in  their  sphere ;  but,  apart  from, 
and  above  them,  there  should  be  ample 
room  to  furnish  him  a  well-recognized  seat 
in  the  modern  Parnassus.  May  he  not 
at  least  be  placed  along  with  Browning, 
even  if  the  latter  does  transform  the  world 
into  a  stage  and  play-house  ?  If  you  call 
his  style  obscure,  how  will  you  characterize 
Browning's  ?  I  will  not  say,  take  for  an 
example  this  last  writer's  "  Bordello,"  which 
was  recalled  and  rewritten  to  make  it 
apprehensible ;  but  take  "  The  Ring  and 
the  Book" — take  the  most  famous  poems, 
and  the  most  of  the  verse  he  has  written, 
extended  or  brief  (excepting  "  Evelyn 
Hope "  and  "  The  Pied  Piper  of  Hame- 
lin  "), — and  what  does  the  average  reader 
make  of  them  ?  But  Browning,  in  spite 


of  thick  obscurity,  and  what  seems  latterly 
like  intolerable  affectation,  enters  into  large 
account  with   all  writers  who    attempt   to 
deal  with    English   poetry;    he  is  marked 
and  measured,  a  society  is  formed  around 
his   name,    and   he    has    the   unmistakable 
distinction    of    having    caused    reams    of 
paper  to  be  written  over  with  most  careful 
praise   or   the   most   complimentary   fault 
finding.     Who  has  yet   sounded   the  true 
note    in    respect    to     Emerson's    poems  ? 
Who,   in    fact,  has    considered   them   with 
jmyjthoughtful     or    elaborate    attention  ? 
Casual   notice,    of  course,    they   have    re 
ceived;    but,    in    the   main,  the   critics,  in 
consideration  of  his  permitted    prose   and 
unimpeachable  moral  flavor,   have   simply 
condescended,  in    silence,    to    forgive   him 
for  being  a  poet. 

Very  likely  Emerson  can  say,  as  Brown 
ing   is  lately  attributed  with   saying   to  a 


i8 

friend :  "  I  can  have  little  doubt  that  my 
writing  has  been  in  the  main  too  hard  for 
many  I  should  have  been  pleased  to  com 
municate  with;  but  I  never  designedly 
tried  to  puzzle  people,  as  some  of  my 
critics  have  supposed.  On  the  other  hand, 
I  never  pretended  to  offer  such  literature 
as  should  be  a  substitute  for  a  cigar  or  a 
game  of  dominoes  to  an  idle  man." 

I  must  make  a  memorandum  here  in 
reference  to  this  bugbear  of  obscurity.  We 
do  not  skip  Shakespeare  or  Dante  because 
we  must  labor  with  them.  It  is  con 
ceded  that  neither  Emerson  nor  Browning 
can  be  called  pellucid  writers.  What  they 
bring  requires  a  faculty  for  resolving,  not 
wholly  dissimilar  to  that  which  inheres  in 
the  contribution.  Is  it  unfair  that  the 
reader  should  be  asked  to  possess  a  little 
spark  of  the  fire  that  went  with  so  much 
force  to  inflame  the  page? 


But  there  is  a  difference  in  opacities. 
Emerson's  dimness  seems  more  directly  a 
necessary  incident,  and  less  an  invention. 
It  is  not  so  willful-appearing  as  the 
English  poet's.  If  he  exploits  new  idioms 
in  his  speech  he  is  not  so  full  of  inces 
sant  syntactical  contractions — the  verb 
and  its  nominative  case  and  all  the  parts 
of  speech  scintillating  and  careering  about 
until  their  condition  becomes  as  doubtful 
as  was  Douglas  Jerrold's  when,  accosting 
"Sordello,"  he  felt  obliged  to  ask,  "Am 
I  drunk,  or  am  I  sober?"  Nor  is  there 
such  a  conglomeration  of  broken  sentences 
gluing  together  fragments  of  thought  which 
he  begins  to  utter,  and  then  drops,  as 
Browning  uses — leaving  you  to  pursue  your 
way  out  of  darkness  into  light  as  best  you 
may. 

/      Emerson's  opacity  relates  more  logically 
and   reasonably  to   the   magnitude   of  his 


20 

thought.  Apart  from  it  all,  however,  he 
has,  as  I  shall  show,  abundant  fluid  beauty, 
which  ought  to  be  familiar  and  accessible 
to  any  reader  to  whom  the  best  poetry  has 
anything  to  offer.  He  uses  "  thunder- 
words,"  as  the  Germans  say,  which  fill 
with  lightning  all  the  circuits  of  the  sky; 
but  they  are  there  for  a  purpose.  Oftener 
than  anything,  I  suspect,  which  troubles  the 
average  mind  that  approaches  this  incom 
parably  fine  body  of  verse,  is  its  unremitting, 
tremendous  condensation  of  thought.  If 
Emerson  were  to  touch  a  trifle,  the  blow 
would  be  delivered  with  the  weight  of  a 
trip-hammer;  yet,  as  that  instrument  is 
sometimes  successfully  used  to  crack  a  wal 
nut,  so  his  reserve  force,  always  apparent 
and  dominant,  gives  weight  to  the  most  airy 
expression.  He  does  not  certainly  write 
vers  de  societe,  as  Locker  and  Dobson  do; 
but  in  his  poem  of  "The  Romany  Girl" 


21 


we  can  see  how  the  lighter  theme  fares  in 
his  hands.  It  is  the  gypsy  who  speaks  and 
says: 

The  sun  goes  down  and  with  him  takes 

The  coarseness  of  my  poor  attire ; 

The  fair  moon  mounts,  and  ay  the  flame 

Of  gypsy  beauty  blazes  higher. 

Pale  Northern  Girls!    you  scorn  our  race; 
You  captives  of  your  air-tight  halls, 
Wear  out  indoors  your  sickly  days, 
But  leave  us  the  horizon  walls. 
****** 
Go,  keep  your  cheek's  rose  from  the  rain, 
For  teeth  and  hair  with  shopmen  deal: 
My  swarthy  tint  is  in  the  grain  — 
The  rocks  and  forests  know  it  real. 

The  wild  air  bloweth  in  our  lungs, 
The  keen  stars  twinkle  in  our  eyes, 
The  birds  gave  us  our  wily  tongues, 
The  panther  in  our  dances  flies. 

How  well  thought  out  this  imagery  is. 
The  lines,  hard  and  tensely  drawn,  fall 
upon  the  air  with  tingling,  metallic  force. 
Emerson  cannot  abide  the  frail  texture 


22 

so  fashionable  in  a  great  deal  of  modern 
verse,  and  insists  that  a  spinal  system  is 
preferable  to  mere  perfumery,  color,  and 
technical  correctness.  In  another  brief 
poem,  titled  "  The  Amulet,"  which  is  given 
without  reduction  below,  see  with  what 
firmness  and  force  he  imprints  the  intense 
and  scalding  thought  of  the  lover,  a  little 
while  separated  fram  the  object  of.  his 
love,  and  (so  it  ever  is)  of  his  agonizing 
doubt : 

Your  picture  smiles  as  first  it  smiled; 

The  ring  you  gave  is  still  the  same; 
Your  letter  tells,  O  changing  child ! 

No  tidings  since  it  came. 

Give  me  an  amulet 

That  keeps  intelligence  with  you, — 
Red  when  you  love,  and  rosier  red, 

And  when  you  love  not,  pale  and  blue. 

Alas!  that  neither  bonds  nor  vows 

Can  certify  possession; 
Torments  me  still  the  fear  that  love 

Died  in  its  last  expression. 


I 


23 

A  purely  academic  writer,  or  a  feebler 
genius  would  not  have  ventured  to  invert 
the  verb  in  the  final  couplet,  or  to  change 
the  music  and  motion  so  suddenly  as  it 
is  done  in  the  first  line  of  the  second 
stanza.  He  would  probably  have  said,  in 
the  latter  instance : 

Give  me  a  trusty  amulet, 

or  would  have  used  some  other  adjective 
to  piece  out  a  uniform  rhythm.  But  this 
broken  chord  exactly  fits  the  sudden 
shock  of  eagerness  and  passion  at  that 
particular  moment.  A  great  musician  puts 
in  discords  purposely,  which  the  full  piece 
resolves;  but  your  Fadladeens,  who  know 
how  to  "judge  of  everything,  from  the 
pencilling  of  a  Circassian's  eyelids  to  the 
deepest  questions  of  science  and  litera 
ture,"  see  only  the  technical  deficiency  or 
redundance,  as  the  case  may  be. 


24 

Among  the  few  poems  which  Emerson 
has  keyed  to  the  lighter  movement,  I 
have  always  thought  his  "Una"  stands 
conspicuous  for  an  ineffable,  haunting 
beauty,  which,  if  I  could,  I  should  not 
care  to  explain.  With  what  captivating 
touches  he  has  shaped  these  stanzas  and 
couplets  which  I  take  from  it  below : 

Roving,  roving,  as  it  seems, 
Una  lights  my  clouded  dreams  ; 
Still  for  journeys  she  is  dressed; 
We  wander  far  by  east  and  west 


If  from  home  chance  draw  me  wide, 
Half-seen  Una  sits  beside. 


But  if  upon  the  seas  I  sail, 
Or  trundle  on  the  glowing  rail, 
I  am  but  a  thought  of  hers, 
Loveliest  of  travelers. 

One  can  best  understand  the  nature  of 
Emerson's  poetry  by  taking  some  account 


25 

of  the  view-point,  or  perspective,  which 
he  employs.  His  own  conception  of  what 
it  is  that  goes  to  the  making  of  the  true 
bard  will  in  some  measure  define  his  own 
position.  I  open  his  oldest  book  of 
poems  almost  by  accident  at  "  Merlin," 
and  hear  him  say : 

The  trivial  harp  will  never  please 

Or  fill  my  craving  ear  ; 

Its  chords  should  ring  as  blows  the  breeze, 

Free,  peremptory,  clear. 

No  jingling  serenader's  art, 

Nor  tinkle  of  piano-strings, 

Can  make  the  wild  blood  start 

In  its  mystic  springs. 

The  kingly  bard 

Must  smite  the  chords  rudely  and  hard, 

As  with  hammer  or  with  mace ; 

That  they  may  render  back 

Artful  thunder,  which  conveys 

Secrets  of  the  solar  track, 

Sparks  of  the  supersolar  blaze. 


Great  is  the  art, 

Great  be  the  manners,  of  the  bard. 


26 


He  shall  not  his  brain  encumber 

With  the  coil  of  rhythm  and  number ; 

But,  leaving  rule  and  pale  forethought, 

He  shall  ay  climb 

For  his  rhyme. 

"  Pass  in,  pass  in,"  the  angels  say, 

"  In  to  the  upper  doors, 

Nor  count  compartments  of  the  floors, 

But  mount  to  paradise 

By  the  stair-way  of  surprise." 


He  shall  not  seek  to  weave, 
In  weak,  unhappy  times, 
Efficacious  rhymes ; 
Wait  his  returning  strength. 
Bird,  that  from  the  nadir's  floor 
To  the  zenith's  top  can  soar, 
The  soaring  orbit  of  the  muse  exceeds  that 
journey's  length. 

I  detect  an  almost  playful  Persian  touch 
in  the  final  cadences  of  this  extract,  as  if 
the  author  were  mounting  to  his  purpose 
"by  the  stair-way  of  surprise" — or,  as  if 
Hafiz  or  Firdousi  himself  were  speaking. 
It  is  said  that  Persian  poetry — and,  in  fact, 


27 

all  oriental  verse — admits  of  endless  license 
in  the  matter  of  rhythm  and  versification, 
there  being  no  less  than  three  systems  of 
metre,  marked  by  different  rules,  which  need 
not  be  kept  separate,  and  which  are  often 
allowably  made  to  coalesce  in  a  single 
piece.  But  Emerson  not  only  takes  an 
oriental  freedom  in  his  measures;  he  em 
ploys,  as  the  Asiatic  bards  do,  all  the 
machinery  of  subtle,  unexpected  and  fan 
tastic  conceit.  His  sensitive  harp  catches 
in  the  air  many  tones.  You  find  echoes  of 
Marlowe,  Chapman,  Milton,  Marvell,  Her 
bert,  Herrick,  and  Donne,  and  of  all  schools; 
chords  which  go  round  the  world  and 
through  the  centuries;  and  notably  that 
rich,  that  prodigal,  luxurious,  quintessential 
attar  which  flows  from  the  realm  of  the 
rising  sun.  What  Goethe  says  of  the 
Spanish  poet  Calderon  (I  quote  Lord 
Houghton's  forcible  translation)  serves 


28 


equally  well  if  you  substitute  for  his  name 
Emerson's : 

Many  a  light  the  Orient  throws, 
O'er  the  midland  waters  brought; 
He  alone  who  Hafiz  knows 
Knows  what  Calderon  has  thought. 

In  the  "  May-Day "  volume  some  of 
Emerson's  own  characteristic  epigram  verses 
(the  "  Quatrains ")  are  placed  in  juxta 
position  to  his  terse  translations,  chiefly 
oriental,  and  the  kinship  of  the  mintage 
is,  in  some  respects,  curious.  Shall  we  say 
on  account  of  this  homogeneity  that  the 
Oriental  is  but  another  Yankee  ?  Or  is  it 
that  the  Yankee  is  merely  the  Oriental 
moved  farther  west.  At  any  rate,  what  Ha- 
fiz  addresses  to  himself,  and  what  Emerson 
says  of  him,  are  wondrously  alike  in  mood, 
texture,  and  tune.  This  is  what  Hafiz  sings : 

Thou  foolish  Hafiz !   say,  do  churls 
Know  the  worth  of  Oman's  pearls  ? 
Give  the  gem  which  dims  the  moon 
To  the  noblest,  or  to  none. 


29 

And  this  is  Emerson's  portraiture  which 
follows : 

Her  passions  the  shy  violet 
From  Hafiz  never  hides  ; 
Love-longings  of  the  raptured  bird 
The  bird  to  him  confides. 

Nor  is  the  generic  similarity  of  which  I 
speak,  which  these  two  quatrains  partially 
indicate,  all  owing  to  the  fact  that  Emerson 
puts  his  own  flavor  into  the  translation. 
The  truth  is,  if  the  translation  here  seems 
(as  it  evidently  does)  a  little  more  like 
Emerson  than  it  does  like  Hafiz,  the  bal 
ance  is  more  than  preserved  by  his  steeping 
his  own  original  quatrain  in  a  little  tincture 
of  the  wine  and  spirit  of  oriental  thought. 
When  he  translated  Hafiz,  he  was  probably 
thinking  of  his  own  workmanship ;  when  he 
described  him,  he  was  simply  absorbed  in 
the  milieu  of  the  Persian  poet. 

One  of  his  draughts  on  the  Persian  musey 
which  is  so  alive  and  fluent  that  it  fairly 


3° 

sings  and  dances  itself  into  the  reader's 
brain,  is  the  mystic  "  Song  of  Seid  Nimetollah 
of  Kuhistan,"  which  is  sung  and  danced  by 
the  Dervishes  in  one  of  their  religious  exer 
cises.  I  give  only  the  first  stanza — but  the 
whole  is  worth  the  reader's  attention : 

Spin  the  ball!     I  reel,  I  burn, 
Nor  head  from  foot  can  I  discern, 
Nor  my  heart  from  love  of  mine, 
Nor  the  wine-cup  from  the  wine. 
All  my  doing,  all  my  leaving, 
Reaches  not  to  my  perceiving; 
Lost  in  whirling  spheres  I  rove, 
And  know  only  that  I  love. 

Saadi's  objective  verses  —  the  ethics  and 
anecdote  of  "  The  Gulistan  " — have  also 
won  the  high  regard  and  compliment  of 
Emerson.  Many  of  his  devoted  readers 
will  recall,  before  they  reach  this  reference 
to  it,  his  enthusiastic  article  on  "  Persian 
Poetry,"  published  twenty  years  ago  in  the 
Atlantic  Monthly,  in  which  he  interspersed, 


31 

with  great  relish,  bits  and  nuggets  of  various 
authors,  drawn  from  Von  Hammer  Purg- 
stall's  Persian  anthology. 

It  is  difficult,  I  find,  to  speak  of  Emer 
son's  poetry  without  frequently  thinking 
over  or  stepping  over  the  line  which  sepa 
rates  it  from  his  prose  —  the  spiritual  border 
land  being  so  faint,  elusive,  and  indefinite. 
Both  have  been  often  accused  of  being 
inconsecutive — "  not  logical,  but  analog 
ical,"  as  Alcott  says — a  disarranged  jumble 
of  shining  thoughts ;  and  I  note,  in  Emer 
son's  preface  to  Gladwin's  translation  of 
"  The  Gulistan,"  that  he  says :  "  Wonder 
ful  is  the  inconsecutiveness  of  the  Persian 
poets.  *  *  *  No  topic  is  too  remote 
for  their  rapid  suggestion.  The  Ghaselle, 
or  Kassida,  is  a  chapter  of  proverbs,  or 
proverbs  unchaptered, — unthreaded  beads 
of  all  colors,  sizes,  and  values.  Out  of 
every  ambush  these  leap  on  the  unwary 


32 

reader."  Of  Saadi,  he  says:  "Through 
his  Persian  dialect  he  speaks  to  all  nations, 
and  like  Homer,  Shakespeare,  Cervantes, 
and  Montaigne,  is  perpetually  modern." 
In  his  long  poem  dedicated  to  this  serene 
old  bard — who  is  said  to  have  divided 
his  life  up  into  sections  of  about  thirty 
years  for  experience,  meditation,  and  travel, 
and  who  devoted  the  last  thirty  and  more 
of  them,  until  he  died,  aged  102,  to  medi 
tation  and  literary  work — Emerson  says: 

His  words,  like  a  storm-wind,  can  bring 

Terror  and  beauty  on  their  wing; 

In  his  every  syllable     . 

Lurketh  nature  veritable; 

And  though  he  speak  in  midnight  dark, — 

In  heaven  no  star,  on  earth  no  spark, — 

Yet  before  the  listener's  eye 

Swims  the  world  in  ecstasy. 

The  forest  waves,  the  morning  breaks, 

The  pastures  sleep,  ripple  the  lakes, 

Leaves  twinkle,  flowers  like  persons  be, 

And  life  pulsates  in  rock  or  tree. 

Saadi,  so  far  thy  words  shall  reach ; 

Suns  rise  and  set  in  Saadi's  speech ! 


33 

How  dearly  Emerson  likes  a  deep  and 
wide  utterance.  He  welcomes  and  hugs 
the  thought  which  sweeps  over  a  broad 
swath.  Nothing  less  than  the  whole 
curve  which  reaches  from  sunrise  to  sun 
set  will  satisfy  him.  It  is  our  littleness, 
our  monotony — he  would  tell  us — that 
reprobates  a  foreign  garb  of  speech,  or 
terms  a  remote  manner  provincial.  The 
universality,  scope,  and  depth  which  he 
attains  give  to  his  outlines  the  breadth 
and  largeness  of  cartoons  which  rest 
against  an  unlimited  background.  The 
extent  of  his  draught,  like  that  which 
Thor  took  from  the  drinking-horn  of  the 
giants  at  Jotunheim,  seems  to  imply  an 
oceanic  ebb  and  the  motion  of  cosmic 
currents. 

I    am    perpetually   impressed    with    the 
high  majesty  and  solemnity  of  Emerson's 
muse.      If  it   touches   anything   trivial   or 
3 


34 

commonplace,  it  does  not  leave  it  so. 
"  When  we  speak  of  the  poet  in  any  high 
sense,"  he  writes,  "  we  are  driven  to  such 
examples  as  Zoroaster  and  Plato,  St.  John 
and  Menu,  with  their  moral  burdens." 
If  the  spiritual  purpose  and  pretension  of 
the  old  Greek  oracles  stood  buttressed 
behind  its  utterance,  it  could  not  well  be 
more  earnest  or  more  oracular.  How  he 
uses  and  respects  his  art  may  be  judged 
by  this  extract  from  his  poem  of  "  The 
Problem." 

Not  from  a  vain  or  shallow  thought 

His  awful  Jove  young  Phidias  brought; 

Never  from  lips  of  cunning  fell 

The  thrilling  Delphic  oracle; 

Out  from  the  heart  of  nature  rolled 

The  burdens  of  the  Bible  old; 

The  litanies  of  nations  came, 

Like  the  volcano's  tongue  of  flame, 

Up  from  the  burning  core  below, — 

The  canticles  of  love  and  woe ; 

The  hand  that  rounded  Peter's  dome 

And  groined  the  aisles  of  Christian  Rome, 


35 


Wrought  in  a  sad  sincerity ; 
Himself  from  God  he  could  not  free; 
He  builded  better  than  he  knew, — 
The  conscious  stone  to  beauty  grew. 

A  sense  of  dignity  and  reverent  beauty 
transfuses  his  artistic  expression,  and  is 
never  absent  from  his  thought.  The 
artist,  whoever  he  be — in  the  Emersonian 
horoscope — works  in  "love  and  terror." 
He  translates  the  soul  of  things;  and, 
faithfully  spelling  out  the  elusive  secrets 
of  Nature  and  the  human  heart,  finds  that 
he,  too,  is  adjudged  a  part  of  the  great 
scheme. 

In  the  same  poem  he  says: 

Earth  proudly  wears  the  Parthenon, 
As  the  best  gem  upon  her  zone ; 
And  morning  opes  with  haste  her  lids 
To  gaze  upon  the  Pyramids  ; 
O'er  England's  abbeys  bends  the  sky, 
As  on  its  friends,  with  kindred  eye, — 
For,  out  of  thought's  interior  sphere, 
These  wonders  rose  to  upper  air; 


36 

And  Nature  gladly  gave  them  place, 
Adopted  them  into  her  race, 
And  granted  them  an  equal  date 
With  Andes  and  with  Ararat. 

Who,  now,  is  the  poet  that  Emerson 
recognizes,  and  how  shall  we  describe  him  ? 
In  a  suggestive  summary  he  puts  the  traits 
of  this  interpreter  in  the  opening  of  his 
exquisite  "  Woodnotes  "  : 

When  the  pine  tosses  its  cones 
To  the  song  of  its  waterfall  tones, 
Who  speeds  to  the  woodland  walks? 
To  birds  and  trees  who  talks? 
Caesar  of  his  leafy  Rome, 
There  the  poet  is  at  home. 
He  goes  to  the  river-side, — 
Not  hook  nor  line  hath  he; 
He  stands  in  the  meadows  wide, — 
Nor  gun  nor  scythe  to  see : 
Sure  some  god  his  eye  enchants : 
What  he  knows  nobody  wants. 


Knowledge  this  man  prizes  best 
Seems  fantastic  to  the  rest: 


37 


Pondering  shadows,  colors,  clouds, 
Grass-buds  and  cater  pillar -shrouds, 
Boughs  on  which  the  wild  bees  settle, 
Tints  that  spot  the  violet's  petal, 
Why  Nature  loves  the  number  five, 
And  why  the  star-form  she  repeats  : 
Lover  of  all  things  alive, 
Wonderer  at  all  he  meets, 
Wonderer  chiefly  at  himself, 
Who  can  tell  him  what  he  is  ? 
Or  how  meet  in  human  elf 
Coming  and  past  eternities  ? 

The  poet,  then,  in  this  stoutly  painted 
character,  is  not  to  be  divorced  from  a  cer 
tain  religious  sanctity — an  almost  priestly 
habit  —  a  mediatorship  between  the  ineffa 
ble  and  man.  And  I  know  of  none  in  the 
whole  range  of  literature  who  so  answers  to 
this  conception  as  Emerson.  This  fiber  is 
illustrated  by  the  circumstance  that,  in 
lineage,  he  is  the  product  of  eight  genera 
tions,  from  no  one  of  which,  either  on  the 
paternal  or  maternal  side,  was  the  minister 
absent.  The  fact  of  this  long  ministerial 


descent  enables  Burroughs,  who  has  uttered 
some  vivid  sayings  about  his  prose,  to  de 
clare  of  him  that  "  the  blood  in  his  veins 
has  been  teaching  and  preaching,  and  think 
ing  and  growing  austere  these  many  genera 
tions.  *  *  The  virtues  of  all  those  New 
England  ministers  and  all  those  tomes  of 
sermons  are  in  this  casket." 

It  is  a  strong  spiritual  effluence  you  ex 
tract  from  all  he  prints,  either  in  prose  or 
verse  —  a  savor  of  Sinai  and  the  moral  law. 
He  plants  the  flower  edelweiss  and  alpine 
beauty  on  these  high  glaciers.  A  most 
importunate  and  patient  searcher  he  is 
after  the  inmost  meaning  of  things.  He 
would  miss  nothing  that  is  significant;  he 
will  crowd  the  universe  into  a  nutshell,  and 
makes  every  line  bear  the  burden  that 
weaker  writers  bestow  on  a  whole  page.  It 
is  the  very  pith  and  marrow  of  the  matter 
which  he  wishes  to  unfold;  and  nothing 


39 

satisfies   him  that  is  less  than   a   piercing 
stroke  into  the  deep  below  the  deep. 

With  what  pure  selection  he  chooses 
every  word.  His  whole  life-time  has  gone 
into  the  making  of  a  few  volumes  —  not 
much  more  than  half  a  dozen  in  all  —  and 
the  longer  he  lives  the  more  he  cramps  and 
bereaves  them ;  but  what  wit,  and  strength, 
and  beauty,  and  eloquence  they  uphold! 
What  a  supreme,  audacious  splendor !  In 
the  slow  manner  in  which  he  writes,  and 
erases;  in  the  long  time  he  holds  his  proof- 
sheets  for  perusal,  reperusal,  and  retouching 
of  the  text,  to  the  great  perplexity  of  his 
publishers  (if  they  have  not  long  since  be 
come  used  to  it), — is  shown  the  intense 
thoroughness  and  winnowing  he  applies  to 
each  separate  part  and  piece.  In  his  poem  * 

*  The  muse  which  speaks  here  is  the  World- 
Muse  ;  or,  as  Mr.  Kennedy  says,  the  Genius  of 
Life;  but,  in  a  more  limited  sense,  the  process 
described  justifies  my  illustration. 


40 

of  "  The  Test"  (Musa  Loquitur)  he  betrays 
with  what  searching  scrutiny  each  line  is 
put  into  final  shape : 

I  hung  my  verses  in  the  wind, 

Time  and  tide  their  faults  may  find. 

All  were  winnowed  through  and  through, 

Five  lines  lasted  sound  and  true, 

Five  were  smelted  in  a  pot 

Than  the  South  more  fierce  and  hot  — 

These  the  siroc  could  not  melt; 

Five  their  fiercer  flaming  felt, 

And  the  meaning  was  more  white 

Than  July's  meridian  light. 

Sunshine  cannot  bleach  the  snow, 

Nor  time  unmake  what  poets  know. 

Have  you  eyes  to  find  the  five 

Which  five  hundred  did  survive  ? 

Endless  and  persistent  with  him  is  this 
fiery  expurgation,  collation,  and  revision. 
"  In  reading  prose,"  he  says,  "  I  am  sen 
sitive  as  soon  as  a  sentence  drags,  but  in 
poetry  as  soon  as  one  word  drags."  Such 
a  value  he  puts  upon  perfect  expression. 
A  properly  termed  extemporaneous  utter- 


ance  is  not  natural  with  him,  and,  when 
he  seems  to  have  yielded  to  occasional 
utterance,  as  in  the  "  Hymn "  written  for 
the  completion  of  the  Concord  monument, 
and  one  or  two  other  pieces,  the  excep 
tions  are  voided  of  force  by  the  probable 
coincidence  of  a  genuine  inspiration  with 
the  occasion.  But  the  theory  which  rules 
his  habit  is  not  left  without  proof.  In 
one  of  his  earliest  essays,  he  confides  to 
his  readers  that  "the  inexorable  rule  in 
the  muse's  court,  either  inspiration  or 
silence,  compels  the  bard  to  report  only 
his  supreme  moments.  It  teaches  the 
enormous  force  of  a  few  words,  and  in 
proportion  to  the  inspiration  checks  lo 
quacity."  As  his  beloved  Herrick  says: 

Tis  not  every  day  that  I 
Fitted  am  to  prophesy. 
No ;   but  when  the  spirit  fills 
The  fantastic  pinnacles 


Full  of  fire,  then  I  write 
As  the  Godhead  doth  indite. 
Thus  enraged  my  lines  are  hurled, 
Like  the  Sibyls,  through  the  world. 
Look,  how  next  the  holy  fire 
Either  slakes,  or  doth  retire; 
So  the  fancy  carols,  till  when 
That  brave  spirit  comes  again. 


It  is  interesting  to  compare  the  poems 
as  they  stand  in  his  first  book  with  the 
book  now  current,  which  contains  every 
thing  already  offered  in  book  form  that 
he  cares  to  preserve.  The  real  changes 
are  not  so  many;  but  some  of  the  most 
competent  and  loyal  lovers  of  Emerson's 
poetry  grieve  at  any  change.  They  hesi 
tate  in  having  any  line  that  he  has  ever 
written  blotted  or  blurred.  I  discern  in 
the  latest  volume  four  poems  that  I  do 
not  find  in  either  of  the  two  volumes  pre 
ceding  it,  viz. :  "  April,"  "  Maiden  Speech 
of  the  ^Eolian  Harp,"  "  Cupido,"  and 


43 

"The  Nun's  Aspiration,"  besides  a  few 
that  have  been  picked  out  of  his  maga 
zine  contributions  of  late*  years.  Another, 
entitled  simply  "The  Harp,"  is  merely  a 
long  episode  taken  from  "May- Day"  as 
it  first  appeared ;  and  this  "  May-Day " 
poem  has  itself  undergone  in  its  new 
guise,  in  addition  to  this  long  elision,  a 
variety  of  permutations  similar  to  that 
which  would  happen  if  half  its  paragraphs 
were  to  be  taken  and  shuffled  like  a  pack 
of  cards.  The  traditional  critic  would  sig 
nal  this  as  an  evidence  of  invalidity  in 
the  poem,  but  the  admirer  of  Emerson 
sees  in  the  fact  that  it  survives  such  a 
shock  the  deep  spiritual  content  of  it,  and 
feels  that  it  has  filaments  which  secure  its 
unity  against  all  accidents  of  disrupted 
logical  succession  or  mere  verbal  weld 
ing.  Sufficient  to  each  part  is  its  own 
meaning,  while  each  also  conspires  to  a 


44 

ravishing  wholeness  quite  beyond  an  ordi 
nary  writer's  reach.  A  few  lines  I  find 
are  omitted,  but  the  transformation  is  the 
chief  change. 

In  the  "Woodnotes,"  the  first  six  lines 
are  omitted,  and  those  which  immediately 
follow  are  accommodated  to  this  change; 
but  farther  on  a  large  paragraph  is  dis 
carded,  and  a  considerable  part  of  another 
is  placed  in  the  section  marked  Part  II. 
In  Part  II.  there  are  fewer  changes;  but 
these  electric  lines,  among  others,  are 
missing : 

I  will  teach  the  bright  parable 
Older  than  time, 
Things  undecla/able, 
Visions  sublime. 

In  "  Waldeinsamkeit,"  the  last  line  of 
the  first  stanza  is  wholly  changed,  and  the 
penultimate  stanza  is  omitted.  In  "  Mer 
lin,"  Part  II.  is  entirely  omitted  from  the 


45 

revised  poems.  These  do  not  include  all 
the  changes ;  but  I  do  not  care  to  com- 
.plete  the  list,  or  to  say  more  about  them 
than  to  remark  that,  when  allowance  is 
made  for  what  is  wholly  left  out  or  sim 
ply  re-arranged,  there  were  but  few  verbal 
or  essential  modifications  that  seemed  fit 
to  be  made  even  to  the  author's  fastidious 
judgment.*  I  notice  a  typographical  error 
occurs  in  the  new  edition  at  the  end  of 
Part  I.  of  the  "  Woodnotes,"  which  makes 
the  final  line  end  with  a  comma  joined 
to  a  dash.  My  copy  of  this  edition  bears 
date  of  1879;  though  I  also  possess,  and 
have  at  hand,  the  first  edition  (copyright 
of  1846)  and  the  "  May-Day  "  collection. 
These  three  books  contain,  with  the  ex 
ception  of  a  part  of  the  motto-poems  in 
"  The  Conduct  of  Life  "  and  other  prose 
works,  all  of  Emerson's  poetry,  I  be- 

*  See  Appendix. 


46 

lieve,  that   has   so    far  found  its  way  into 
covers. 

As  a  pendant  to  the  bibliographical  side 
of  my  subject,  I  venture  to  think  the  follow 
ing  poem,  written  by  Emerson  when  he 
was  twenty-six  years  old,  and  which  has 
never  appeared  in  any  edition  of  his  works, 
will  be  of  interest  to  the  reader.  I  am  in 
debted  for  it  to  a  friend  whose  copy  of  it 
bears  a  preface  by  Col.  T.  W.  Higginson, 
which  says,  "it  is  taken  from  a  little  volume 
called  The  Offering,  which  was  published  by 
the  Cambridge  Divinity  Students  in  1829." 
While  its  intrinsic  value  is  not  small,  it 
piques  curiosity  from  the  fact  that  it  exhibits 
the  early  groping  of  the  author's  mind 
toward  its  present  mold  of  form  : 

FAME. 

Ah,  Fate !    cannot  a  man 

Be  wise  without  a  beard? 
From  East  to  West,  from  Beersheba  to  Dan, 
Say,  was  it  never  heard 


47 


That  wisdom  might  in  youth  be  gotten, 
Or  wit  be  ripe  before  'twas  rotten? 

He  pays  too  high  a  price 

For  knowledge  and  for  fame 
Who  gives  his  sinews  to  be  wise, 

His  teeth  and  bones  to  buy  a  name, 
And  crawls  through  life  a  paralytic, 
To  earn  the  praise  of  bard  and  critic. 

Is  it  not  better  done, 

To  dine  and  sleep  through  forty  years, 
Be  loved  by  few,  be  feared  by  none, 

Laugh  life  away,  have  wine  for  tears, 
And  take  the  mortal  leap  undaunted, 
Content  that  all  we  ask  was  granted? 

But  Fate  will  not  permit 

The  seeds  of  gods  to  die, 
Nor  suffer  sense  to  win  from  wit 

Its  guerdon  in  the  sky; 
Nor  let  us  hide,  whate'er  our  pleasure, 
The  world's  light  underneath  a  measure. 

Go,  then,  sad  youth,  and  shine! 

Go,  sacrifice  to  fame; 
Put  love,  joy,  health,  upon  the  shrine, 

And  life  to  fan  the  flame! 
Thy  hapless  self  for  praises  barter, 
And  die  to  Fame  an  honored  martyr. 


48 

I  do  not  forget  the  fact  that  some  wise 
and  cultured  people  are  confounded  by 
Emerson's  poetry.  It  is  portentous  and 
unfathomable,  and  they  skip  the  page  which 
offers  them  nothing.  Like  some  who  dis 
like  Wagner's  music,  they  have  never  yet 
felt  the  key-note.  A  critical  English  jour 
nal  has  made  the  unqualified  declaration 
that  Emerson  is  not  a  poet;  and  what,  for 
the  want  of  a  real  academy,  we  may  term 
academical  tradition,  sides  largely  with  the 
dissidents.  But  argument  is  as  futile  with 
this  state  of  mental  inaptitude  as  it  is  with 
the  color-blind.  There  is  no  delinquency 
of  perception  so  unhelpable  as  that  which 
discerns  but  one  literary  fashion.  A  candid 
and  broader  view  will  not  believe  that 
beauty  exhausts  itself  in  a  single  type. 
Genius  is  for  the  most  part  a  law  unto 
itself,  and  is  usually  the  element  which  is 
certain  to  escape  your  most  precise  defini- 


49 

tion.     You  demand  a  logical  order,  and  do 
not  find  it.     Remember,  to  the  careless  eye 
the  clear  stars  of  a  winter  evening  are  but 
so  many  single  points ;  but  to  the  astron 
omer,  the  mechanism  of  the  universe,  and 
the  music  of  the  spheres  of  which  they  are 
the  symbols,  are  not  less  imagined  and  real. 
I  find  in  Emerson's  poetry  (and  the  obser 
vation  touches  his  prose  as  well)  a  constant 
relation   to   the   breadth   of   some   endless 
horizon.     Each    line    is    an    arrow    swept 
across,  or  into  the  center  of  the  universe ; 
and  it  is  not  a  common  divinity  that  has 
drawn   the    bow.       "The   poet,"   he   says, 
"  gives  us  the   eminent  experience  only — 
a   god   stepping   from   peak   to   peak,  nor 
planting    his    foot    but    on    a    mountain." 
"Jewels    all,"     says     Alcott.        "Separate 
stars,"   *    *    but,  "vistas  opening  far  and 
wide."    *    *    "  There  is  substance,  sod,  sun ; 
much   fair  weather   in  the  seer  as  in   his 


5° 

leaves.  The  whole  quaternion  of  the  sea 
sons,  the  sidereal  year  has  been  poured  into 
these  periods.  Afternoon  walks  furnished 
their  perspective,  rounded  and  melodized 
them."  It  is  the  art  of  Emerson  to  load 
and  overload  his  words  with  the  most 
urgent  stress  of  beauty  and  meaning.  They 
are  suggestive  in  unnamable  directions, 
and,  as  Lowell  says,  " fecundative " — "a 
divining-rod  to  our  deeper  natures."  Chan- 
ning  says  of  them : 

The  circles  of  thy  thought  shine  vast  as  stars, 

No  glass  shall  round  them, 

No  plummet  sound  them, 
They  hem  the  observer  like  bright  steel- wrought  bars, 

And  limpid  as  the  sun, 

Or  as  bright  waters  run 

From  the  cold  fountain  of  the  Alpine  springs, 
Or  diamonds  richly  set  in  the  king's  rings. 

What  force  and  grace  stream  from  lines 
like  these,  where  he  terms  the  Humble- 
bee 


51 

Thou  animated  torrid  zone  ! 

Sailor  of  the  atmosphere ; 
Swimmer  through  the  waves  of  air ; 
Voyager  of  light  and  noon ; 
Epicurean  of  June ; 

and  one  may  read  as  well  for  the  same 
qualities  the  whole  poem.  Or  these  lines 
below,  taken  with  little  selection  from 
"  May-Day  "  : 

The  youth  reads  omens  where  he  goes, 
And  speaks  all  languages  the  rose. 


Is  it  Daedalus  ?     Is  it  love  ? 

Or  walks  in  mask  almighty  Jove, 

And  drops  from  Power's  redundant  horn 

All  seeds  of  beauty  to  be  born  ? 

But  soft !  a  sultry  morning  breaks ; 
The  ground-pines  wash  their  rusty  green, 
The  maple-tops  their  crimson  tint, 
On  the  soft  path  each  track  is  seen, 
The  girl's  foot  leaves  its  neater  print. 
The  pebble  loosened  from  the  frost 
Asks  of  the  urchin  to  be  tost. 


52 

Or  read  the  second  and  final  paragraphs 
in  the  "  Ode  to  Beauty,"  or  the  whole 
of  "The  Rhodora,"  "The  Snow-Storm," 
the  "Two  Rivers,"  and  "The  Sea-Shore." 
Where  did  an  elegy  ever  strike  more 
touching  depths  than  the  incomparable 
"  Threnody  "  ?  What  farewell  to  the  muse, 
or  to  authorship,  will  you  find  more  tender 
or  pathetic  than  "  Terminus  "  ?  But  the 
aggravation  of  quoting  from  our  author 
is,  that  you  leave  so  much  which  might 
just  as  well  be  quoted.  To  attempt  this 
exercise  is  also  to  incur  the  grievous  dis 
appointment  described  in  his  poem  "  Each 
and  All,"  where  the  "  sparrow  in  his  nest " 
and  the  "delicate  sea-shells"  were  taken 
from  the  large  setting  which  gave  them 
their  prime  significance.  I  cannot  drop 
my  reference  to  the  "  Threnody,"  however, 
without  repeating  what  a  gifted  English 
poet — who  is  a  felicitous  critic  by  inter- 


53 

vals — has  uttered  with  reference  to  elegiac 
verse.  He  says  that  the  "Lycidas"  of 
Milton,  the  "Adonais"  of  Shelley,  and 
"  The  Thyrsis "  of  Matthew  Arnold,  are 
"  three  elegiac  poems  so  great  that  they 
eclipse  and  efface  all  the  elegiac  poetry 
we  know  ;  all  of  Italian,  all  of  Greek." 
Noting,  as  he  does  not,  Tennyson's  long 
poem  of  sorrow  as  a  worthy  member  of 
this  group,  I  must  also  add  to  them 
Emerson's  "  Threnody,"  which,  though  so 
different,  is  no  inferior  in  this  shining 
company 

The  stimulus  and  inspiration  which  in 
here  in  Emerson's  words  are  matchless. 
Their  melody  is  not  only  unique,  but 
supreme  : 

— a  melody  born  of  melody, 
Which  melts  the  world  into  a  sea. 
Toil  could  never  compass  it, 
Art  its  height  could  never  hit, 
It  came  never  out  of  wit. 


54 

Burroughs's  testimony  is  that  Emerson 
"has  written  plenty  of  poems  that  are 
as  melodious  as  the  hum  of  a  wild  bee 
in  the  air — chords  of  wild  seolian  music. 
*  *  Not  in  the  poetry  of  any  of  his  con 
temporaries  is  there  such  a  burden  of  the 
mystery  of  things  or  such  round  wind- 
harp  tones,  lines  so  tense  and  resonant, 
and  blown  upon  by  a  breeze  from  the 
highest  heaven  of  thought."  And  he 
quotes  Rossetti,  who  says  :  "  He  is  a  Druid 
who  wanders  among  the  bards  and  strikes 
the  harp  with  even  more  than  bardic 

stress." 

I  admit  that  Emerson  has  done  what 
Carlyle  did — perfected  a  mold  of  speech, 
in  his  own  way,  for  himself — and  that  he 
does  not  always  obey  the  prescribed  poet 
ical  canons;  defies  them,  in  fact,  with 
unusual  license.  He  pours  forth  at  times 
broken,  irregular  verses;  deals  in  abrupt 


55 

transitions  of  thought;  employs  occasion 
ally  astonishing  rhymes;  and  leaves  to  the 
reader  some  discretion  and  part  in  weaving 
together  the  continuity  of  his  ideas.  One 
may  not  think  that  down  and  dimension, 
success  and  Eumenides,  bear  and  wood 
pecker,  and  the  like  have  any  more  right 
to  be  married  in  rhyme,  than  have  the 
elephant  and  the  kangaroo;  but  he  puts 
them  together  with  a  strange  felicity,  and 
the  archaism  becomes  a  beauty  rather  than 
a  blemish.  But  I  am  citing  extreme  cases 
here  with  full  intent.  In  other  couplets — 
as  in  these,  for  instance  — 

Give  to  barrows,  trays,  and  pans, 
Grace  and  glimmer  of  romance; 

Is  the  ancestor  of  wars 
And  the  parent  of  remorse ; 

Love  shuns  the  sage,  the  child  it  crowns, 
Gives  all  to  them  who  all  renounce  — 


56 

he  secures  such  a  flavor  as  haunts  and 
holds  you  long  after  their  spell  has  been 
uttered.  The  wish  which  the  poet  often 
feels  to  get  out  of  ruts,  and  abandon  the 
Delia  Cruscan  tameness  of  such  frequently 
repeated  rhymes  as  day  and  May,  fly  and 
sky,  breeze  and  trees,  hour  and  flower,  is 
easily  compassed  by  Emerson  through  the 
virility  of  his  vocabulary,  and  the  strange 
and  subtle  force  he  can  put  in  his  final 
words  and  syllables — the  rhyming  chords. 
The  new  English  school  of  poets,  some 
times  called  the  preraphaelites, —  of  which 
Swinburne,  Rossetti,  and  Morris  are  the 
chiefs, — attain  a  similar  end  by  making  use, 
with  marked  effect,  of  such  rhymes  as 
thing  and  thanksgiving,  her  and  harp-player, 
where  the  ictus  must  of  necessity  fall,  in 
the  rhyming  word,  on  the  penultimate 
syllable,  instead  of  on  the  rhyming  one. 

It  should  not  be  hard  for  a  trained  and 
cultivated  ear  to  acquire  a  liking  for  the 


57 

magic  of  Emerson's  melody;  and  when  the 
mind  is  in  sympathy  with  the  scale  of 
thought,  and  beats  in  time  with  it,  there 
befalls  a  ravishment  which  unfits  the  recipi 
ent  for  any  lesser  strain.  He  will  no  longer 
tolerate  a  thinner  tune;  the  weaker  and 
watered  phrases  which  before  delighted 
seem  emptied  forever  of  their  old  charm 
and  power.  It  is  a  music  in  which  color, 
aroma,  and  prismatic  light  are  blended. 
Not  Offenbach's — passional,  laughter-like 
and  giddy — but  rather  a  symphony  like 
Beethoven's,  which  would  pierce,  or  leave 
the  gates  of  paradise  ajar.  Inevitably  there 
will  be  no  popular,  applauding  crowd  to 
listen.  It  is  keyed  for  a  select  group  in  a 
vast  cathedral,  whose  roof  is  the  overarching 
sky,  and  whose  long,  resounding  corridors 
are  made  to  awaken  the  deepest  imaginings 
of  the  human  soul. 

We  shall  never  have  a  second  Emerson, 
any   more   than   we   shall   have   a   second 


Shakespeare.  Let  us  not  be  afraid  to  cele 
brate  him.  We  are  told  that  he  has  limita 
tions — that  he  could  not  produce  an  epic 
or  a  drama,  and,  most  likely,  would  find  it 
difficult  to  write  an  acceptable  love-story 
for  the  magazines  and  newspapers.  He 
commits  the  unpardonable  sin,  with  ortho 
dox  theories  of  literature,  in  writing  about 
Shakespeare  as  he  does,  and — counter  to 
all  traditions — calling  his  dramatic  power 
"  secondary."  I  know  that  Shakespeare 
picked  up  his  plots  from  Boccaccio  and 
others;  how  am  I  to  know  that  even  he 
had  the  power  to  produce  a  plot  ?  It  was 
his  habit,  certainly,  to  take  the  most  of  them 
at  second  hand.  But  Emerson's  argument, 
I  take  it,  is  that,  after  they  are  produced, 
they  are  merely  the  frame  for  his  large 
idealism — his  masterly,  colossal,  overpower 
ing,  spermatic  thought.  Can  Shakespeare 
get,  did  any  one  ever  get,  one  stroke 


59 

beyond  the  power  of  pure,  primitive 
thought  ?  Does  any  one  hold  that  there 
is  a  primum  mobile  in  mere  mechanism? 
Finally,  is  not  all  this  talk  about  the 
splendor  of  the  drama,  because  it  is  drama 

the  glory  of  the  epos  or  tale — simply  so 

much  laudation  of  the  spoon  from  which 
we  eat  and  drink?  Or  can  the  vehicle 
supersede  and  sanctify  the  thing  that  is 
conveyed  ? 

I  am  as  much  captivated  by  the  delicious 
charm  of  stories  and  dramatic  situations  as 
any  one  can  be.  Childhood  not  only  craves 
this  pleasure,  but  we  ourselves  never  out 
grow  the  child-like  desire  to  behold  a  social 
orrery  in  which  persons  take  the  places  of 
planets,  and  range  through  their  related 
orbits.  If  a  few  minds — notably  Emerson's 

have   outgrown   the   necessity  for  these 

crutches  to  help  them  walk,  these  glasses 
to  help  them  see,  and  can  dispense  with 


6o 

literary  jack-straws,  or  complicated  lay- 
figures,  must  they  be  set  down  as  fatally 
bereaved?  It  is  no  disparagement  to  the 
drama  if  we  insist  that  it  shall  not  be  pro 
nounced  as  a  shibboleth.  Let  a  master  use 
what  medium  he  pleases — he  shall  be  a 
master  still ;  and  whether  Emerson  is  really 
limited  or  self-limited,  I  hail  him  as  a  mem 
ber  of  that  inspired  choir  which  he  de 
scribes —  one  of  those 

Olympian  bards  who  sung 

Divine  ideas  below, 
Which  always  find  us  young, 

And  always  keep  us  so. 

Our  delight  in  Emerson,  in  fact,  springs 
largely  from  his  loftiness  of  vision.  His 
perspective  is  that  of  the  aeronaut's,  and 
he  never  falls  or  falters  below  it.  There  is 
not  a  line  which  descends  from  the  first 
high  level.  Such  uniformity  of  altitude  no 
writer  that  I  know  of  so  steadily  maintains. 


6i 

• 

Here  is  so  high  a  voice  that  it  never  leaves 
the  sunshine — is  never  swathed  in  shadows 
—  but,  like  the  final  one  in  Longfellow's 
"Excelsior,"  falls 

—  "like  a  falling  star." 

A  proverb-like  fullness,  purity  of  tone, 
magnetic  phrases,  the  beating  of  the  Puri 
tan  pulse,  are  in  his  speech.  In  his  poems, 
the  titles  are  half-poems.  His  sentences 
tingle  with  tense,  metallic  vibration.  He  is 
a  perpetual  surprise.  You  read  deep  secrets 
through  him  as  Coleridge  read  Shakespeare 
through  Kean's  acting — "by  flashes  of 
lightning."  We  miss  in  his  page  the  first 
note  of  tumult  or  turbulence.  Two  symbols 
which  occur  in  his  prose  and  recur  in  his 
poetry — the  ^Eolian  Harp  and  the  Pine- 
Tree  (which  is  but  another  ^Eolian  Harp)  — 
fitly  express  his  genius.  It  is  through 
these  that  we  have  access  to  and  communi- 


62 

cation  with   the   deep,  vague  whispers  of 
immensity  and  eternity. 

Many  years  ago  Mr.  Emerson  handed 
me  a  slip  of  paper,  at  the  end  of  an  inter 
view,  on  which  he  had  written  a  couplet  of 
his  own,  which,  I  think,  has  never  yet  found 
its  way  into  print.  I  give  it  below  because 
it  partakes  of  his  essential  quality,  and  also 
because  it  helps  me  to  point  a  reflection. 
Thus  it  reads : 

A  score  of  airy  miles  will  smooth 
Rough  Monadnock  to  a  gem. 

The  alert  reader  will  perceive  at  once 
that  this  thought  is  substantially  equivalent 
in  purport  to  Campbell's  well-worn  distich 
below : 

'Tis  distance  lends  enchantment  to  the  view, 
And  robes  the  mountains  in  their  azure  hue. 

But  one  is  delicate,  suggestive ;  the  other 
direct  and  prosaic.  The  first  is  cloth  of  silk 


63 

and  gold ;  the  second  is  calico,  in  compari 
son,  or,  perhaps,  fustian.  He  who  makes 
choice  between  these  two  forms  discloses 
and  defines  his  own  measure  of  poetic  per 
ception — puts  himself  on  the  empyreal 
summit,  or  settles  in  the  shallows  of  com 
monplace. 

It  cannot  be  too  often  repeated  that 
Emerson's  poetry  is,  above  all  its  felici 
ties,  alive  with  moral  purport  and  motive. 
Emerson  no  more  deals  in  art  for  art's 
sake  than  you  build  your  house  for  the  dis 
play  of  a  cornice  and  picturesque  angles. 
What  he  has  to  say  leaps  forth  from  an 
overpowering  burden — a  weight  of  com 
pulsion  restrained  up  to  the  point  of  the 
irresistible.  His  poetry  is  not  so  much 
made  as  it  is  received  and  retold.  It  is 
the  mouth-piece  of  the  moral  sentiment, 
the  transpiration  of  original  and  primitive 
promptings — the  breath  of  the  Oversoul. 


64 

And  yet  there  is  no  part  of  its  form  that 
is  not  carefully  studied  and  shaped.  The 
most  wayward  line,  the  most  frolicsome 
paragraph,  as  the  indentations  and  type 
run,  are  adjusted  after  a  strictly  stud 
ied  and  conscientious  plan.  The  pedant, 
whose  sense  of  scansion  and  balanced 
rhythm  never  went  farther  than  Pope's 
heroic  couplet,  looks  up  confounded  at  it, 
and  thinks  he  has  discovered  an  escape 
from  Bedlam.  He  finds  his  "  settled  liter 
ary  opinions  and  tastes  disturbed,"  and  he 
has  no  conception  of  any  other. 

The  late  Prof.  Reed,  who  made  some 
acute  observations  on  this  limited  literary 
sense,  said  :  "  It  is  the  highest  attribute  of 
original  powers  to  enlarge  the  sphere  of 
human  sensibility.  Think,  for  instance, 
how  the  light  of  Spenser's  imagination  at 
once  disclosed  to  view  the  untraveled  lati 
tudes  of  his  mavelous  allegory.  *  *  * 
When  a  poet  of  original  powers  arises, 


65 

his  very  originality  can  be  shown  only  by 
extending  the  light  of  his  genius  to  regions 
of  thought  and  feeling  unillumined  before." 
In  another  place  he  says :  "  Each  poet  of 
original  genius  dwells  in  an  atmosphere 
of  his  own,  and  he  who  seeks  to  know 
him  must  learn  to  breathe  it.  *  *  He 
must  needs  live  in  it  for  a  brief  space." 

Emerson's  attitude  to  the  universe  has 
a  certain  resemblance  to  Swedenborg's,  but 
is  without  the  slightest  touch,  though,  of 
that  hallucinated  seer's  dogma,  and  coarse, 
mechanical  contrivance.  He  reports  from 
an  immanent  spirit  the  closest  correspond 
ences  between  the  soul  and  material  ex 
pression.  There  is  no  limit  to  his  reverent 
wonder;  even  the  slightest  thing  takes  on 
the  hue  of  miracle.  I  am  often  reminded, 
by  his  manner  of  evolving  his  verses,  of 
Wordsworth's  curious  child, 

—  applying  to  his  ear 
The  convolutions  of  a  smooth-lipped  shell. 

5 


66 


As  the  roaring  sea,  unseen  and  afar  off, 
spoke  to  his  inland  imagination,  evoking 
continual  awe  and  wonder,  so  the  earth, 
sky,  and  sea  speak  to  Emerson.  His 
rapture  with  Nature  rises  to  perennial  in 
spiration — to  a  serene,  excessive  delight. 
Shown  equally  in  a  score  of  examples,  I 
only  quote  here,  as  an  instance,  the  con 
clusion  to  "  The  Rhodora  " : 

Rhodora  !    if  the  sages  ask  thee  why 
This  charm  is  wasted  on  the  earth  and  sky, 
Tell  them,  dear,  that  if  eyes  were  made  for  seeing, 
Then  beauty  is  its  own  excuse  for  being : 
Why  thou  wert  there,  O  rival  of  the  Rose  ! 
I  never  thought  to  ask — I  never  knew; 
But,  in  my  simple  ignorance,  suppose 
The     self -same    power    that    brought    me    there 
brought  you. 

This  ecstasy  and  raptness  melt  at  times 
into  a  subtle  mysticism,  or  burst  into  He 
braic  austerity  of  enunciation.  In  moods 
like  these  the  oracular  voice  becomes, 


67 

occasionally,  so  intent  on  its  utterance,  as 
to  appear  enigmatic  and  puzzling.  Per 
haps  the  quatrain  given  below,  written  for 
Mrs.  Sargent,  and  which  Emerson  himself 
has  never  printed,  will  exhibit  what  I 
suggest.  It  is  a  miniature  sermon  on 
charity  •  and  I  am  quoting  Mr.  Sanborn, 
I  think,  in  saying  that  we  have  here  "his 
exact  oracular  words,  such  as  he  chooses 
for  verse,  leaving  the  reader  to  make  the 
best  of  them,  and  careless  if  he  sometimes 
makes  the  worst  of  them  "  • 

The  beggar  begs  by  God's  command, 
And  gifts  awake  when  givers  sleep  : 
Swords  cannot  cut  the  giving  hand, 
Nor  stab  the  love  that  orphans  keep. 

It  is  Mr.  Sanborn,  at  any  rate,  who 
says  this  apropos  of  Emerson's  verse :  "  It 
is  the  privilege  of  exquisite  beauty,  and 
of  that  nobility  of  soul  which  is  the  coun- 


68 

terpart  and  masculine  response  to  beauty, 
instantly  to  deprive  us  of  all  power  of 
comparison.  They  are  like  nothing  in 
our  experience,  they  suggest  nothing  but 
themselves  and  each  other,  and  in  their 
brightness  all  things  else  appear  but  as 
dust  in  the  sunshine.  Whoever  has  not 
had  this  vision,  nor  felt  this  kindling  of 
the  soul  in  reading  or  listening  to  Emer 
son,  must  have  failed  to  meet  his  thought 
at  all,  and  therefore  be  as  incapable  of 
understanding  him  as  the  deaf  are  to  ap 
preciate  music.  *  *  It  was  said  of 
Socrates,  in  a  doubtful  compliment,  that  he 
brought  philosophy  down  from  heaven  to 
earth.  It  might  as  truly  be  said  of  Emer 
son  that  he  raises  earth  to  the  level  of  di 
vine  philosophy — a  loftier  art.  His  method 
in  this  is  a  purely  poetic  one,  and  there 
fore,  while  he  lacks  what  is  ordinarily  called 
creative  power  in  verse,  he  moves  more 


69 

constantly  than  any  recent  poet  in  the 
atmosphere  of  poesy.  Since  Milton  and 
Spenser,  no  man — not  even  Goethe — has 
equaled  Emerson  in  this  trait,  which,  like 
personal  beauty,  as  has  been  said,  can 
neither  be  explained  nor  criticised.  '  There 
it  is.  If  you  do  not  see  it,  God  help  you ! 
for  none  of  us  can  ! ' ' 

A  brilliant  French  writer  remarks  that 
well-selected  words  are  sentences  abridged. 
Schelling  says,  "  In  good  prose  every  word 
is  underscored."  It  was  a  favorite  saying 
of  the  Pandits  that  "  an  author  rejoice th 
in  the  economizing  of  half  a  short  vowel 
as  much  as  in  the  birth  of  a  son ! " 
Apter  illustrations  of  this  emphasis  of 
brevity  cannot  be  found  than  in  Emer 
son's  style.  How  constantly  he  surprises 
by  not  only  pressing  all  the  meaning  out 
of  a  word,  but  by  crowding  voluminous 
and  unsuspected  force  into  it?  All  his 


7° 

verses  bristle  with  this  power.  Mr.  F.  H. 
Hedge  pronounces  his  poem  of  "The 
Problem "  as  "  wholly  unique,  and  tran 
scending  all  contemporary  verse  in  grandeur 
of  style."  Of  all  the  poems  Frederika 
Bremer  said  :  "  They  are  all  to  me  as  a 
breeze  from  the  life  of  the  New  World,  in  a 
certain  illimitable  vastness  of  life,  in  expec 
tation,  in  demand,  in  faith,  in  hope,  —  a 
something  which  makes  me  draw  a  deeper 
breath,  and,  as  it  were,  in  a  larger  and  freer 
world."  Joined  to  this  strength  is  the  web 
and  spell  of  beauty  from  which  he  never  for 
a  moment  escapes.  What  he  says  of  Saadi, 
in  a  part  of  a  fragment  of  one  poem  not  yet 
submitted  by  him  to  the  public,  fits  equally 
his  own  gift : 

Northward  he  went  to  the  snowy  hills; 
At  court  he  sat  in  grave  Divan. 
His  music  was  the  south-wind's  sigh, 
His  lamp  the  maiden's  downcast  eye; 
And  ever  the  spell  of  Beauty  came, 


71 

And  turned  the  drowsy  world  to  flame, 
By  lake,  and  stream,  and  gleaming  hall, 
And  modest  copse  and  forest  tall, 
Where'er  he  went,  the  magic  guide 
Kept  its  place  by  the  poet's  side. 

If  we  return  now  to  the  previous  ques 
tion,  and  ask,  What  is  poetry  ?  a  thousand 
answers  confront  us.  When  Joubert  said 
that  "  Boileau  is  a  powerful  poet,  but  only  in 
the  world  of  half  poetry,"  his  final  phrase 
flashed  with  illumination.  "  How  true  that 
is  of  Pope  also  !  "  says  Matthew  Arnold. 
To  many,  poetry  is  indissolubly  confounded 
with  a  counting  of  their  fingers;  and  a 
consciousness  of  this  prevalent  faith  made 
an  irreverent  critic  say  that  any  one  who  can 
measure  tape  can  write  the  poetry  of  Pope. 
The  witty  mot  had  a  grain  of  truth  under 
its  extravagance,  but  overlooked  Pope's 
prodigal  power  in  one  direction.  No  sane 
critic  now,  I  am  sure,  considers  the  "  Essay 
on  Man"  as  anything  more  than  an  admi- 


72 

rable  piece  of  worldly  wit  put  in  rhymed 
epigram.  Still,  it  is  the  best  "  half  poetry  " 
that  the  world  of  the  eighteenth  century 
had  to  show.  Poetry  that  is  whole,  or 
entire,  has  for  its  fountain-head  the  imagi 
nation;  but  this  is  a  theme  too  large  for 
subsidiary  discussion,  or  for  treatment  as  an 
episode. 

Carlyle's  averment  that  poetry  is  "  mu 
sical  thought"  is  good  enough  so  far 
as  it  goes.  And,  if  we  take  what  he 
himself  says  of  music,  the  description 
applies  perfectly  to  some  of  the  deep  and 
far-away  tones  of  Emerson's  muse.  That 
haunting,  undulating  thrill  which  capti 
vates  the  soul  and  defies  expression  pulses 
through,  and  is  in,  the  very  midst  of  it.  Its 
offering  cannot  always  be  translated  into 
exact  phrases — meaning  so  much  and  no 
more;  for  it  is  "a  kind  of  inarticulate,  un 
fathomable  speech,  which  leads  us  to  the 


73 

edge  of  the  Infinite,  and  lets  us  for  mo 
ments  gaze  into  that !  " 

Emerson's  genius — though  it  contains,  as 
I  have  said,  the  core  and  heart  of  the  East 
— is,  in  form,  essentially  Northern  and 
Gothic;  not  tropical,  or  equatorial.  It 
has  a  hyperborean  birth,  and  sometimes 
shows  a  touch  of  sturdy  Berserker  wrath. 
The  volcano  within  is  capped  with  ice  and 
snow  above — emotion  subservient  to  intel 
lect.  It  is  power,  passion,  infinite  restraint, 
and  repose  working  in  unison.  The  beauty 
of  his  lines  has  sometimes  the  effect  upon 
me  of  an  arctic  landscape.  I  walk  through 
the  enchantments  of  Niflheim.  I  see  the 
splendors  of  icebergs  and  ice-clad  forests, 
frosty  stalactites  and  prismatic  wonders, 
gleaming  auroras,  and  all  that  gives  a  crys 
talline  delight.  And  yet,  if  you  interpret 
the  fable  so  as  to  make  it  mean  the  spirit 
ually  dead,  it  is  "poetry  which,  like  the 


74 

verses  inscribed  on  Balder's  column  at 
Breidablik,  is  capable  of  restoring  the  dead 
to  life."  Its  regenerative  power  cannot  be 
measured  to  those  who  have  once  caught 
the  focus  of  the  lens.  If  you  look  toward 
it  from  the  dull  end  of  the  kaleidoscope, 
you  will  see  only  a  handful  of  colored  beads. 
Put  your  eye  on  the  right  line,  and  you 
cannot  shuffle  them  or  jostle  them  from  the 
most  serene  and  exquisite  purpose  and 
order. 

I  do  not  expect  the  world  will  be  con 
verted  to  the  enthusiasm  that  requires  so 
much  preparation  to  receive,  or  that  there 
will  ever  be  a  popular  deference  to,  Emer 
son's  mode  and  perspective.  I  know 
how  much  easier  it  is  to  toy  with  and 
enjoy  the  colored  surfaces  of  things  than 
to  explore  the  higher  altitudes,  or  pene 
trate  into  the  abysmal  depths.  "  Men,"  says 
Bacon,  "  prefer  to  the  diamond  the  deeper- 


75 

colored  gems."  The  telling  objects  to  the 
majority  are  the  transparent  ones,  and 
the  average  reader,  only  aroused  languidly, 
cares  for  nothing  but  that  note  which 

"  Rings    like    a   tinkling   pebble   down   a   tinkling 
path." 

Whoever  chooses  to  reflect  sees  there  is 
an  essence  of  poetry  which  none  of  the 
definitions  perfectly  define.  That  dainty 
genius,  Joubert,  who  writes  as  if  Ariel  had 
turned  critic,  says :  "  The  poet  must  be  not 
only  the  Phidias  and  the  Daedalus  of  his 
verses ;  he  must  also  be  the  Prometheus : 
with  form  and  movement  he  must  also  give 
them  life."  Accosting  the  perplexing  prob 
lem  that  has  come  down  to  us  from  the 
time  of  Aristotle,  he  puts  himself  among 
the  questioners  on  this  theme.  Asking 
"  What  is  poetry  ?  "  he  replies :  "  At  this 
moment  I  cannot  say.  But  I  maintain 


76 

that,  in  words  used  by  the  true  poet,  there 
is  found  for  the  eyes  a  certain  phosphor 
ous,  for  the  taste  a  certain  nectar,  for  the 
attention  an  ambrosia  not  found  in  them 
when  used  by  any  one  else."  Was  there 
ever  any  one  to  whom  this  description 
applies  better  than  it  does  to  Emerson  ? 

Is  there  any  one  now  living — is  there 
any  old  Greek  master  among  the  dead — 
who  ever  spoke  with  more  majestic  or 
sonorous,  more  strident,  more  enchanting 
or  more  appealing  emphasis,  than  the  one 
we  have  dared  to  extol  ?  Where  shall  we 
find  the  fountain  of  beauty,  if  his  words 
are  not  bathed  in  it  ?  Where  the  sea  of 
thought,  or  the  sky  of  imagination,  if  his 
pinions  have  not  touched  them  ? 

One  profound  New  England  scholar, 
widely  versed  in  various  literatures,  and 
himself  a  poet,  has  very  lately  said:  "I 
place  Emerson  at  the  head  of  the  lyric 
poets  of  America.  In  this  judgment  I 


77 

anticipate  wide  dissent."  But  he  explains, 
after  going  so  far,  that  he  does  not  so 
much  refer  to  his  poetic  art,  in  which  he 
recognizes  limitations,  as  to  his  "  utter 
spontaneity.  *  *  More  than  any  one 
of  his  contemporaries,  his  poems  for  the 
most  part  are  inspirations.  They  are  not 
made,  but  given;  they  come  of  them 
selves."  He  speaks  of  them  as  "bursting 
from  the  soul  with  an  irrepressible  neces 
sity  of  utterance  —  sometimes  with  a  rush 
that  defies  the  shaping  intellect."  It  has 
been  noted  by  more  than  one  that  he 
has  written  lines  that  are  now  as  well  es 
tablished  as  those  we  quote  from  Shakes 
peare.  Take,  as  a  ready  instance  : 

He  builded  better  than  he  knew ; 
or  that  line  from  another  poem: 

And  fired  the  shot  heard  round  the  world; 

or, 

"The  silent  organ  loudest  chants 
The  master's  requiem." 


78 

Nature,  tremulous  with  mind,  and  not 
a  soulless  mechanism,  is  the  great  affirma 
tion  which  runs  not  only  through  Emer 
son's  poetry,  but  through  all  that  he  writes. 
To  illustrate  this,  he  commands  every  re 
source  and  makes  even  the  denials  of 
science  fortify  the  truth  on  which  the  uni 
verse  is  suspended.  It  used  to  be  said 
of  Wendell  Phillips's  speeches  that  they 
always  give  you  the  latest  news;  the 
evening  lecture  would  be  as  fresh  as  the 
evening  paper;  and,  after  a  similar  sort, 
you  can  discern  the  high-water  mark — 
the  lapse  of  the  last  wave — of  science  in 
Emerson's  periods.  Mr.  W.  T.  Harris 
says  that,  "no  other  poet  since  Shakes 
peare  has  been  endowed  with  so  clear 
and  sustained  insight  into  the  transcend 
ency  of  mind  in  the  visible  world." 

Of  his  employment  of  other  factors  than 
rhythm  and  rhyme  in  the  formation  of  his 


79 

poems,  the  same  writer  gives  a  felicitous 
hint.  "  Emerson,"  he  says,  "  very  often 
uses  the  Hebrew  device  of  rhyme  of  thought 
in  his  poetry,  though  not  omitting — if 
sometimes  slighting — the  external  rhyme 
and  rhythm."  And  this  is  illustrated  in  the 
following  passage  from  his  poem  of  "The 
Sphinx  " : 

The  fate  of  the  man-child; 

The  meaning  of  man; 
Known  fruit  of  the  unknown; 

Daedalian  plan ; 
Out  of  sleeping  a  waking, 

Out  of  waking  a  sleep; 
Life  death  overtaking; 

Deep  underneath  deep. 

To  the  criticism  of  poetry  Emerson 
brings  a  deep  insight — an  interior  vision. 
It  is  the  spirit,  not  the  mold,  which  first 
arrests  him.  To  a  genuine  inspiration  he 
can  allow  great  latitude  of  manner  and 
form.  In  detecting  faults,  or  marking 


8o 


verbal  felicities, — while  looking  mainly  be 
yond  these, — none  is  better  than  he.  His 
emphasis  on  afhrmatives  sometimes  made 
him  benignant  where  others  would  be 
severe ;  but  what  he  saw  was  certainly 
there.  His  opinion  of  poetry,  it  is  said, 
had,  with  his  most  noted  friends,  famous 
themselves  as  poets,  a  high  judicial  value. 
If  the  world  did  not  heed  his  work,  they,  at 
least,  listened  to  his  large  and  minute 
criticism  as  they  listened  to  no  other. 
Whatever  the  press  might  declare,  or  public 
silence  and  neglect  imply,  no  great  poet 
doubts  that  he  stands  monumentally  high 
in  his  guild. 

If  there  is  a  seeming  exception  to  this 
statement  in  one  young  English  poet's  out 
break  when  piqued  and  offended  at  a  little 
plain  speaking  by  Emerson  over  his  froth- 
fully  frenetic  and  sensual  fancies,  it  finds  a 
reason  in  that  fact.  And  yet  I  do  not 


8i 


doubt  that  this  writer  of  marvelous  gifts  in 
the  lyric  direction  sees  and  esteems — as 
his  bitter  retort  does  not  exclude,  and 
would  imply — Emerson's  authority  and 
power.  In  this  coupling  with  Emerson's  a 
name  representing  such  contrast  in  style, 
one  who  thinks  of  them  both  can  see  how 
Olympian  calmness  and  restraint  compare 
with  their  extreme  counterpart  in  the  field 
of  poetical  expression.  No  doubt  Emerson's 
"Parnassus"  revealed  in  him,  to  some 
minds,  unexpected  tastes  and  predilections, 
but  it  justifies,  on  careful  study,  catholicity 
of  feeling  and  keen  discernment. 

Mr.  Curtis  says  that  Emerson's  words, 
long  ago  applied  to  Channing's  poetry  in 
The  Dial,  could  be  easily  transformed  to 
describe  his  own.  "  It  is  of  such  extreme 
beauty  that  we  do  not  remember  anything 
more  perfect  of  its  kind."  Enough  casual 
and  confirmative  utterances  of  similar  pur- 


82 


port  could  be  picked  up  to  excuse  the  lone- 
someness  of  my  plea,  if  it  were  worth  while, 
or  if  I  cared  to  occupy  much  further  space 
on  this  subject.  Mr.  Stedman  and  Mr. 
Whipple,  I  believe,  are  each  contemplating 
considerable  essays  on  Emerson's  poetry; 
while  Mr.  G.  W.  Cooke,  who  has  nearly 
ready*  a  "  A  Study  of  Emerson,"  will  devote 
a  chapter,  at  least,  to  its  significance  and 
high  quality.  In  a  few  years,  let  us  hope — 
for,  I  take  it,  these  are  to  be  favorable 
voices — the  neglect  which  has  hitherto 
been  conspicuous  will  begin  to  be  repaired. 
It  has  been  remarked  that  certain  preg 
nant  lines  from  Emerson's  poem  of  "  The 
Problem  "  have  been  embalmed  in  West 
minster  Abbey;  and  those  who  have  read 

*  This  book  has  now  appeared  under  the  title, 
"  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  :  His  Life,  Writings,  and 
Philosophy,"  and  is  one  of  the  best  tributes  that 
has  ever  been  paid  to  Emerson's  genius  and 
memory. 


the  one  and  seen  the  other  cannot  well 
question  the  felicity  of  the  combination. 
But  we  may  be  permitted  to  wonder  which 
is  bolder,  the  architecture  of  the  poet,  or 
that  of  the  cathedral. 

I  am  impressed  with  the  necessity,  in 
speaking  of  Emerson's  poetry,  of  being  in 
a  measure  paradoxical.  If  I  say  the  flow 
ing  forms  of  Gothic  architecture  —  that  ' 
flower  of  Nature  —  which  you  find  in 
this  famous  abbey  symbolize  this  form  of 
verse,  I  am  compelled  also  to  note  in 
innumerable  places  its  kinship  to  Doric 
severity  —  that  flower  of  Art.  Who  is  it 
that  finds  an  absence  of  art  (an  absence 
of  anything,  in  fact,  but  commonplace, 
which  is  notably  absent)  in  such  lines  as 
these  ? 

O  tenderly  the  haughty  day 
Fills  his  blue  urn  with  fire; 

One  morn  is  in  the  mighty  heaven, 
And  one  in  our  desire. 

— Fourth  of  July  Ode. 


84 

Guest  of  million  painted  forms, 
Which  in  turn  thy  glory  warms  ! 
The  frailest  leaf,  the  mossy  bark, 
The  acorn's  cup,  the  rain-drop's  arc, 
The  swinging  spider's  silver  line, 
The  ruby  of  the  drop  of  wine, 
The  shining  pebble  of  the  pond, 
Thou  inscribes!  with  a  bond 
In  thy  momentary  play, 
Would  bankrupt  Nature  to  repay. 
—  Ode  to  Bea 


O  ostrich-like  forgetfulness  ! 
O  loss  of  larger  in  the  less  ! 
Was  there  no  star  that  could  be  sent, 
No  watcher  in  the  firmament, 
No  angel  from  the  countless  host 
That  loiters  round  the  crystal  coast, 
Could  stoop  to  heal  that  only  child, 
,  Nature's  sweet  marvel  undefiled, 
And  keep  the  blossom  of  the  earth, 
Which  all  her  harvests  were  not  worth  ? 
—  Threnody. 

Need  we  ask  for  more  transparency  than 
these  lines  afford?  And  is  it  not  our 
fault  instead  of  the  writer's  if  they  are  not 
understood  ?  Those  who  wish  for  a  mere 


85 

poetical  veneer,  or  for  poetry  that  goes  on 
with  fatal  facility,  need  not,  and  will  not, 
turn  to  Emerson. 

I  have  not  sought,  however,  to  hide 
the  fact  that  he  has  written  a  great  deal 
which  is  dark  on  the  first,  and,  perhaps, 
on  the  third,  reading.  Of  his  obscurer 
verses,  it  must  be  observed  that  the  theme 
is  habitually  the  highest.  He  strikes  out 
one  broad  synthesis  after  another  in  close 
succession  with  bewildering  prodigality. 
They  are  hints  rather  than  finished  state 
ments.  The  words  chosen  startle  by  their 
deep  suggestion.  Their  polarized  vitality, 
rich  symbolism,  and  strong  percussion 
shock  the  mind,  and  celestial  vistas,  or  un- 
fathomed  deeps,  are  opened.  Who  has  ever 
found  a  passage  in  all  he  has  written  which 
does  not  repay,  by  its  pith,  verve,  and  soar 
ing  impulse,  the  study  it  provokes  ?  In  the 
poem  of  "  Brahma  "  even,  which  became  a 


86 

butt  of  ridicule  when  it  first  appeared,  the 
author  expressed  some  very  definite,  if 
subtle,  ideas ;  so  that  the  critics  who  laughed 
must  have  seen,  at  a  later  day,  that  they 
had  merely  advertised  their  ignorance  of 
the  deeply  poetical  and  significant  struct 
ure  of  the  Hindu  mythology. 

The  subtlety  of  his  thought  in  these 
graver  instances  has,  too,  its  analogue  in  the 
awfulness  of  life  itself,  which  he  describes 
in  a  few  mystical  and  wonderfully  melodi 
ous  lines  in  the  older  form  of  "  Merlin  " : 

"  Subtle  rhymes  with  ruin  rife, 
Murmur  in  the  house  of  life, 
Sung  by  the  Sisters  as  they  spin; 
In  perfect  time  and  measure  they 
Build  and  unbuild  our  echoing  clay, 
As  the  two  twilights  of  the  day 
Fold  us  music-drunken  in." 

But,  to  linger  further  with  my  theme, 
would  lead  me  too  far.  The  whole  mat 
ter  will  be  best  concluded  by  borrowing 


87 

Lowell's  description  of  a  dozen  or  more 
years  ago,  which  sets  forth  his  repeated 
experience  in  one  of  Emerson's  lecture 
audiences  at  Cambridge. 

Those  who  have  heard  Emerson's  lec 
tures  know  that  the  original  verses  some 
times  distributed  through  them — mingled 
with  the  melody  of  the  prose  —  lent  them 
not  a  little  of  their  highest  charm;  so 
that  what  is  true  of  the  one  will  not 
seem  unfit  to  depict  the  other.  Lowell 
says :  "  I  can  never  help  applying  to 
Emerson  what  Ben  Johnson  said  of  Bacon : 
'  There  happened  in  my  time  one  noble 
speaker,  who  was  full  of  gravity  in  his 
speaking.  His  language  was  nobly  cen 
sorious.  No  man  ever  spake  more  neatly, 
more  pressly,  more  weightily,  or  suffered 
less  emptiness,  less  idleness  in  what  he 
uttered.  No  member  of  his  speech  but 
consisted  of  his  own  graces.  His  hearers 


88 


could  not  cough,  or  look  aside  from  him, 
without  loss.  He  commanded  where  he 
spoke  ?  Those  who  heard  him  while  their 
natures  were  yet  plastic,  and  their  mental 
nerves  trembled  under  the  slightest  breath 
of  diviner  air,  will  never  cease  to  feel  and 
say: 

"'Was  never  eye  did  see  that  face, 

Was  never  ear  did  hear  that  tongue, 
Was  never  mind  did  mind  his  grace, 
That  ever  thought  the  travail  long; 
But  eyes  and  ears  and  every  thought 
Were  with  his  sweet  perfections  caught.'" 


APPENDIX. 


THE  late  Mr.  John  A.  Dorgan,  a  young  writer 
of  rare  promise,  and  the  author  of  a  book  of 
poems,  called  "  Studies,"  wrote  a  very  able  essay, 
as  I  remember  it  now,  some  eighteen  years  or  more 
ago,  for  the  Boston  Commonwealth,  on  Emerson's 
poetry,  with  special  reference  to  the  changes  made 
in  it.  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  this,  or  to  recall 
any  part  of  it  for  consultation.  But,  if  a  vivid  im 
pression  may  be  trusted,  I  am  sure  it  is  worth 
reprinting. 

On  comparing  the  early  edition  of  Emerson's 
poems  with  the  so-called  blue-and-gold  one  of  1865, 
which  I  have  done,  line  for  line,  I  find  the  most 
numerous  changes  occur  in  the  poems  titled  "Astrsea" 
and  "  Monadnock."  A  bad  typographical  error  de 
serves  pointing  out  in  this  blue-and-gold  edition  — 
the  substitution  of  the  word  Like  for  Life,  in  the 
seventh  line  of  the  second  stanza,  in  the  poem  of 
"The  Sphinx." 

But  my  reference  here  would  be  inexcusably 
incomplete  if  I  should  forget  to  mention,  as  a  doc 
ument  of  interest  in  this  connection,  Mr.  William 
Sloane  Kennedy's  fine  article  on  "The  Discarded 
Poems  of  Emerson."  It  appeared  in  the  Literary 
World  si  Oct.  7,  1882. 

89 


AN 

EMERSON  CONCORDANCE. 

Contributed  by  WILLIAM  SLOANE  KENNEDY  to  the  ^  Literary 
World"  and  used  Jiere  by  special  permission. 

A  PARTIAL  INDEX  TO 
FAMILIAR  PASSAGES  IN  HIS  POEMS. 

Page-references  are  to  Selected  Poems  [Copyright,  1876, 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.];  for  the  convenience  of  those  using 
earlier  editions,  the  name  of  the  poem  is  given  with  each 
reference.  In  making  the  index,  the  plan  has  been  to  select 
from  each  line  or  paragraph  the  most  striking  and  significant 
word  or  words.  Quite  a  number  of  poems  that  appeared 
in  the  familiar  brown-cloth  editions  were  omitted  by  Mr. 
Emerson  in  the  final  1876  edition.  He  has  also  changed 
many  lines  in  the  poems  given  in  that  edition.  Our  love 
for  him  is  so  great  that  we  hardly  dare  say,  against  his 
wishes,  that  we  hope  every  scrap  of  his  poetry  will  be  in 
cluded  in  some  complete  edition,  after  the  expiration  of  the 
present  copyright.  But,  certainly,  many  of  the  poems  he 
omitted  are  too  good  to  be  lost. 

A  CADEME.     One  in  the  A.—  S.  of  Nat., 
±\-  p.  161. 

ACORN'S.     The  a.  cup.—  Ode  to  Beauty,  p.  81. 
ADORNING.     Itself  with  thoughts  of  thee  a. — 
Ode  to  Beaiity,  p.  83. 
91 


92 


.      Sunny   JE.    sleeps.—/.    D.    and    C. 
Love,  p.  108. 

AFFIRMER.     Thou  grand  a.  of.—  Monadnock, 

P-  153. 

AGES.  A.  are  thy  days.  —  Monadnock,  p.  153. 
AIR.  Flowing  azure  a.  —  Ode  to  Beauty  ,  p.  83. 
AISLES.  And  on  my  heart  monastic  a.  — 

Problem,  p.  14. 
ALBEIT.    Unknown,  a.  lying  near.  —  /.  D.  and 

C.  Love,  p.  103. 
ALL.    A.  are  needed  by  each  one.  —  Each  and 

All,  p.  12. 
ANDES.     Smite  A.  into  dust.  —  Sea-Shore,  p. 

113- 
APPROACHING.     Well  I   hear  the  a.  feet.  — 

Monadnock,  p.  150. 

ARAB.     On  a  mound  an  A.  lay.  —  Hermione, 
p.    94. 

ARCHETYPES.    In  their  a.  endure.—/.  D.  and 

C.  Love,  p.  1  08. 
ARTFUL.     A.  thunder.  —  Merlin,  p.  114. 

ASTONISHED.     Seaman  sails  a.—/.  D.  andC. 

Love,  p.  104. 
ASTRONOMY.     Far-reaching  concords  of  a.  — 

Musketag.,  p.  166. 


93 


ATOM.     No  a.  worn. — S.  of  Nat.,  p.  162. 
Here  was  this  a.  in  full  breath 
Hurling  defiance  at  vast  death. — Titmouse -, 

p.  63. 

ATOMS.     A.  march  in  June. — Monadnock,  p. 
149. 

The  journeying  a. — Sphinx,  p.  8. 
AUBURN-DELL.     Dream  the  dream  of  A.-d. — 

May-Day,  p.  47. 
AVOID.     When  each  the  other  shall  a. — /.  D. 

and  C.  Love,  p.  no. 
AVON.    One  by  A.  stream. —  S.  of  Nat.,  p. 

161. 
Axis.     He  is  the  a.  of  the  star. —  Woodnotes, 

II.,  p.  140. 

AZALEAS.     A.  flush  the  island  floors. — May- 
Day,  p.  48. 

ALL.     Over  the    lifeless    b.—  Wealth,   p. 
170. 
The  shadow  sits  close  to  the  flying  b. — 

Woodnotes,  II.,  p.  138. 

BANKRUPT.      Would  b.   nature  to  repay. — 
Ode  to  Beauty,  p.  81. 


94 

BARD.     The  kingly  b. — Merlin,^.  114. 
BE.     I  rush  to  B. — Nun's  Aspiration,  p.  185. 
BEAD.     String  Monadnock  like  a  b. — Monad- 
nock,  p.  150. 

BEAUTY.      B.  's  not  beautiful  to  me. — Her- 
mione,  p.  94. 

To  die  for  b. — Beauty,  p.  178. 

Carves  the  bow  of  b.  there.  —  Woodnotes, 

II.,  p.  135. 
B.  is  its  own  excuse  for  being. — The  Rho- 

dora,  p.  58. 
BEE.     As  the  b.  through  the  garden  ranges. — 

Woodnotes,  II.,  p.  139. 
BEFALL.    Who  shall  tell  what  did  b.—  Wealth, 

p.  170. 

BEFALLS.     B.  again  what  once  befell.  —  May- 
Day,  p.  47. 

BEING.     Firm  ensign  of  the  fatal  b. — Monad- 
nock,  p.  153. 

Winds  of  remembering 
Of  the  ancient  b.  blow.  —  Bacchus,  p.  118. 
BELLY.     Wine  in  b.  of  the  grape. — Bacchus, 

p.  117. 

BERYL.     B.   beam    of   the    broken    wave. — 
Beauty,  p.  198. 


95 


BEST.     The  fiend  that  man  harries 
Is  love  of  the  b.  —  Sphinx ;  p.  9. 
BIDES.     Who  b.  at  home. — Fate,  p.  89. 
BIND.     B.    the    strength    of   Nature  wild. — 

Wealth,  p.  171. 
BIRD.     B.  trims  her  to  the  gale. —  Terminus, 

p.  187. 

BIRDS.     The  punctual  \>.  —  Musketaq.,  p.  166. 
O  b.   your    perfect  virtues   bring. — May- 
Day,  p.  53. 
Named    without     a     gun. —  Forbearance, 

P-  77- 
BLOOD.     Wildb.  start. —  Merlin,  p.  114. 

Drop   of  manly  b. — Friendship,  p.   177. 
B.  of  the  world. — Bacchus,  p.  117. 
BLUEBIRD.     Musketaq.,  p.  164. 

Myb.'s  note. — May-Day,  p.  47. 

BOAT.  This  round  sky-cleaving  b.  —  Monad- 
nock,  p.  150. 

BOND.  Thou  inscribest  with  a  b.  —  Ode  to 
Beauty,  p.  81. 

BOWERS.  What  recks  such  Traveler  if  the  b. 
—  Woodnotes,  II.,  p.  140. 

BOY.  B.  with  his  games  undaunted. —  World- 
Soul,  p.  24. 


96 


BRAWLERS.     Heed    not  what   the  b.  say. — 

Saadi,  p.  37. 

BREAD.     Than  live  for  b.—  Beauty,  p.  178. 
BREEZE.     As  blows  the  b. — Merlin,  p.  114. 
BRIDGE.    The  ruined  b. —  Cone.  Fight,  p.  202. 
B.  that  arched  the  flood. —  Cone.  Fight, 

p.  202. 
BUILDED.     He  b.  better  than  he  knew. —  The 

Problem,  p.  14. 
BULLET.     B.   of  the  earth. —  Monadnock,  p. 

152. 
BURDENS.    B.  of  the  Bible  old. — The  Problem, 

p.  14. 
BUTLER.     Drug   the   cup,  thou   b.    sweet. — 

May -Day,  p.  48. 

/CALENDAR.  Into  c.  months  and  days.— 
Uriel,  p.  19. 

CANISTER.  God  fills  the  scrip  and  c. — Wood- 
notes,  II.,  p.  130. 

CANTICLES.  The  c.  of  love  and  woe. — Prob 
lem,  p.  14. 

CAPTAIN.  Who  is  the  c.  he  knows  not. — 
Monadnock,  p.  152. 


97 

CARNIVAL.    Gods  kept  c.— S.  of  Nat.,  p.  160. 

CASCADES.    My  leaves  and  my  c. — S.  of  Nat. , 
p.  161. 

CENTURIES.    Thou  meetest  him  by  c.  — Wood- 
notes,  II.,  p.  140. 

Gathering  along  the  c. —  S.  of  Nat. ,  p. 
"59; 

CHARMED.     Every  wave  is  c. — Terminus,  p. 
187. 

CHASTE-GLOWING.      C.-g.    underneath   their 
lids.  —  To  Eva,  p.  92. 

CHIPS.    Who  builds  yet  makes  no  c. — Monad- 
nock,  p.  149. 

CHOIR.     Mighty  c.  descends. — 7.  D.  and  C 
Love,  p.  104. 

CHURCH.     I  like  a  c.—Tke  Problem,  p.  16. 

CHURCHMAN.    That  cowled  c.  be.— The  Prob 
lem,  p.  14. 

CIPHER.   We  cannot  read  the  c. — World-Soul, 
p.  25. 

CIRCLES.     The  c.  of  that  sea  are  laws.— 7.  D. 
and  C.  Love,  p.  109. 

CITIES.     What  if  Trade  sow  c.— World-Soul, 
p.  26. 

7 


98 

CLERK.     The  spruce  c. — Monadnock,  p.  151. 

CLIMB.     Aye   c.  for  his   rhyme. — Merlin,  p. 
115. 

CLUB-MOSS.     Running  over  the  c.-m.  burrs. — 
Each  and  All,  p.  13. 

COCKLES.     Like  c.  by  the  main. — May-Day, 
p.  47- 

COINED.     Or  ever  the  wild  time  c. — Uriel,  p. 
18. 

COLUMBINE.     In  c.  and  clover-blow.  — May- 
Day,  p.  47- 

C.  with  horn  of  honey. — Humblebee,  p.  60. 

COMPASS.    Toil  could  never  c.  it. — Fate,  p.  88. 
CONQUEROR.     Alike  the   c.  silent  sleeps. — 

Cone.  Fight,  p.  202. 
CONSPIRACY.      Works   in    close    c. —  Ode  to 

Beauty,  p.  82. 
COOPED.      C.  in   a  ship  he  cannot  steer.— 

Monadnock,  p.  152. 
CORAL.     Building  in  the  c.  sea. — S.  of  Nat., 

p.  1 60. 
CORSE.     The  glowing  angel,  the  outcast  c. — 

Woodnotes,  II.,  p.  140. 
COSSACKS.    Right  C.  in  their  forages.  — /.  D. 

and  C.  Love,  p.  98. 


99 

COURIERS.     C.   come  by  squadrons.  —  6".  of 
Nat.,  p.  161. 

COWARD.     Amid  these  c.  shapes. — Monad- 
nock,  p.  153. 

COWL.     I  like  a  church;  I   like   a  c.—The 
Problem,  p.  14. 

COWLED.     C.  portrait  dear. — The  Problem,  p. 
16. 

CRAMP.      C.  elf  and  saurian  forms. — S.  of 
Nat.,  p.  1 60. 

CREATION.     Ever  fresh  the  broad  c. — Wood- 
notes,  II.,  p.  138. 

CUP.     Brims   my  little  c. — Dafs  Ration,  p. 
167. 


.     D.  plan.— Sphinx,  p.  7. 
D^MON.    Flickering  D.  film.—/.  D.  and 

C.  Love,  p.  1 08. 

The   patient  D.  sits. — World-Soul,  p.  27. 

DAIMON-SPHERE.     The  path  to  the  d,-s. — 7. 

D.  and  C.  Love,  p.  103. 

DAIMONS.     The  potent  plain  of  d.  spreads. — 
7.  D.  and  C.  Love,  p.  103. 


100 

DAUGHTERS.     D.  of  Time. — Days,  p.  172. 
DAY.     Made  one  of  d. — S.  of  Nat.,  p.  161. 
DAYS.     The  hypocritic  d. — Days,  p.  172. 
DEAD.     Happier  to  be  d. — Beauty,  p.  178. 

DEEP.     D.,  d.  are  loving  eyes. — /.  D.  and  C. 

Love,  p.  107. 
DELICATE.     Ever  by  d.  powers. — S.  of  Nat., 

p.  159. 
DELUGE.     Pour  the  d.  still. — S.  of  Nat.,  p. 

159. 

DENS.     D.  of  passion. — Beauty,  p.  178. 
DERVISHES.     Like  barefoot  d. — Days,  p.  172. 

DESPAIR.      To   master    my   d. — Friendship, 

p.  177. 
DEW.     Gives  back  the  bending  heavens  in  d. 

— S.  of  Nat.,  p.  162. 

DOFFING.     Too  much  of  donning  and  d. — 

S.  of  Nat.,  p.  161. 

DOME.     Rounded  Peter's  d.— Problem,  p.  14. 
DOUBT.     Souls  above  d. —  Give  All  to  Love, 

p.  84. 
DOUBTER.      I    am  the  d.  and  the  doubt. — 

Brahma,  p.  73. 


IOI 


DREAD.  D.  power  but  dear. —  Ode  to  Beauty, 
p.  83. 

DROP.  With  one  d.  sheds  form  and  feature. — 
Woodnotes,  II.,  p.  139. 

DRUGGED.  D.  my  boy's  cup. —  The  Sphinx, 
p.  9. 

DUMB.  D.  in  the  pealing  song. — S.  of  Nat., 
p.  159. 

DUTY.  D.  whispers  low,  Thou  must. — Volun 
taries,  p.  211. 


T^AGLES.     Carries  the  z.—Fate,  p.  89. 
*^    EARTH-SONG.     When  I  heard  the  E.-s. 
Hamatreya,  p.  72. 

ELECTRIC.     E.    thrills    and    ties    of    law. — 
Wealth,  p.  171. 

ENORMOUS.     Through   Heaven's    e.    year. — 
Wealth,  p.  170. 

ENSIGN.    Firm  e.  of  the  fatal  being. — Monad- 
nock,  p.  153. 

EROS.    Strong  E.  struggling  through. — Beau 
ty,  p.  178. 


102 


ESSENCE.     He  is  the  e.  that  inquires. —  Wood- 
notes,  II.,  p.  140. 

Holy  e.  rolls. — /.  D.  and  C.  Love,  p.  108. 
ETERNITY.     Stars    of   e. —  Wood-notes,    II., 

P-  139- 

Ask    on    thou  clothed  e. — The  Sphinx, 

p.  ii. 

EVE.    Obey  the  voice  at  e. —  Terminus,  p.  187. 
EYELESS.     Plunges   e.    on   forever. —  Monad- 
nock,  p.  152. 


T^AITHFUL.     Lowly  f.,  banish  fear.—  Ter- 

JL     minus,  p.  187. 

FANCY-FREE.     Free  be  she,  f.-f.—  Give  All 

to  Love,  p.  85. 
FANNED.     F.  the  dreams  it  never  brought. — 

Woodnotes,  II.,  p.  130. 
FARM  -  FURROWED.       F.-f.,    town-incrusted 

sphere. — Monadnock,  p.  152. 
FARMERS.   Embattled  f. —  Cone.  Fight,  p.  202. 
FATE.     This  is  he  men  miscall  F. — Worship, 

p.  183. 
FATHERS.     Our  f.    built    to    God.— Hymn, 

p.  200. 


FELL.     It  f.  in  the  ancient  periods.      Uriel, 

p.  19. 

FILLET.     Under  her  solemn  f.  —  Days,  p.  172. 
FIRES.     Fanning  secret  f. —  May-Day,  p.  47. 

FISHERS.     F.  and  choppers  and  ploughmen. 

—  Bost.  Hymn,  p.  204. 

FIVE.     Why  Nature   loves  the   number  f. — 
Woodnotes,  p.   126. 

FLINGS.     Into  the  fifth  drop  himself  he  f.  — 
Woodnotes,  II.,  p.  139. 

FOAM-BELLS.     F.-b.  along  Thought's  causing 

stream.  —  World-Soul,  p.  26. 
FORGET.     F.    me    if   he    can. — Monadnock, 

p.  152. 

FORM.     Gliding  through  the  sea  of  f. —  Ode 
to  Beauty,  p.  82. 

In  one  only  f.  dissolves.  —  /.  D.   and  C. 
,   Love,  p.  1 08. 

FORTHRIGHT.     F.   my  planets  roll. — S.   of 

Nat.,  p.  1 60. 
FOUNT.  By  the  shining  f.  of  life. — S.  of 

Nat.,  p.  159. 
FOUNTAINS.  Thou  asketh  in  f.  and  in  fires. 

—  Woodnotes,  II.,  p.  140. 

F.  of  my  hidden  life. — Friendship,  p.  177. 
Spouting  f.  cool  the  air. — Art,  p.  181. 


104 


FREEDOM.     Ere  f.  out  of  man. —  Ode,  p.  208. 

FUND.     Sober  on  a  f.  of  joy. —  Waldeinsam- 
keit,  p.  157. 


GALAXY.      In  globe  and  g.—  Woodnotes, 
II.,  p.  140. 

GAME.     Too  long  the  g.  is  played.— S.  of 
Nat.,  p.  161. 

GARDEN.     Waters  that  wash  my  g.  side. — 

My  Garden,  p.  174. 
GENERATIVE.     Miracle  of  g.  force.— Muske- 

taq.,  p.  1 66. 

GEM.     As  the  best  g.  upon  her  zone. —  The 
Problem,  p.  15. 

GENESIS.     Sweet  the   g.   of  things.— Wood- 
notes,  II.,  p.  133. 

GERMAN'S.     G.   inward  sight. — Monadnock, 

p.  151. 

GIBBOUS.     G.  moon.— S.  of  Nat.,  p.  159. 
GIRDS.     G.  the  world  with  bound  and  term. 

—  I.  D.  and  C.  Love,  p.  108. 

GLORY.     With  firmer  g.  fell.— S.  of  Nat., 
p.  159. 

GOBLIN.     Musketaquit,   a   g.    strong.  —  Two 
Rivers,  p.  156. 


I05 


GODS.  Shadows  flitting  up  and  down.  — /.  D. 
and  C.  Love,  p.  109. 

Delight  in  g. — World-Soul,  p.  27. 

Speak  it  firmly,  these  are  g. 

All  are  ghosts  beside.  —  Voluntaries,  p. 
213. 

It  whispers  of  the  glorious  g. —  World- 
Soul,  p.  25. 

The  strong  g.  pine  for  my  abode. — 
Brahma,  p.  73. 

GODHEAD.  From  world  to  world  the  g. 
changes.  —  Woodnotes,  II.,  p.  139. 

GOOD-BYE.  G.-b.  proud  world.  [Not  re 
printed  in  the  final  (1876)  edition.] 

GRACE.  So  sweet  to  Seyd  as  only  g. — Beauty, 
p.  178. 

GRANDEUR.  So  nigh  is  g.  to  our  dust. — 
Voluntaries,  p.  211. 

GRANITE.  Through  the  g.  seeming. — Monad- 
nock,  p.  149. 

GRASS.  Poor  g.  shall  plot  and  plan. — Bac 
chus,  p.  1 1 8. 

GREETING.  Need  is  none  of  forms  of  g. — 
/.  D.  and  C.  Love,  p.  no. 

GRIM.  G.,  gray  rounding.— Monadnock,  p. 
152. 


io6 


GROUND-PINE.    G.-p.  curled  its  pretty  wreath. 

—  Each  and  All,  p.  13. 

GULF.     G.  of  space.  —  S.  of  Nat.,  p.  159. 
GYPSY.     G.  beauty  blazes  higher. — Romany 
Girl,  p.  86. 

HALF-GODS.    Whenh.-g.  go.—  Give  All 
to  Love,  p.  85. 

HALTETH.     H.  never  in  one  shape. —  Wood- 
notes,  II.,  p.  139. 
HARBINGER.     Rainbow  smiles  his  h. — S.  of 

Nat.,  p.  1 60. 

HARP.     Thy  trivial  h. —  Merlin,^.  114. 
HEARKEN.     H.!  h.!  if  thou  wouldst  know. — 

Woodnotes,  II.,  p.  133. 

HEAT.     Hither  rolls  the  storm  of  h. —  May- 
Day,  p.  44- 

So  pours  the  deluge  of  the  h. 

Broad    northward   o'er  the  land. —  May- 

Day,  p.  47- 
What  god  is  this  imperial  h. — May- Day, 

p.  45. 
HEAVEN.     Find  me  and  turn  thy  back  on  H. 

—  Brahma,  p.  73. 

Already  H.  with  thee  its  lot  has  cast. — 
Sursum  Corda,  p.  79. 


io7 


HIGHER.      H.  far  into  the  pure  realm. — /.  D. 

and  C.  Love,  p.  108. 
HOLY  GHOST.     One  accent  of  the  H.  G. — 

The  Problem,  p.  16. 
HONEY.     Like  fiery  h.  sucked  from  roses. — 

/.  D.  and  C.  Love,  p.  99. 

H.  cloy. — Waldeinsamkeit,  p.  157. 

HOST.     Girds  with  one  flame  the  countless  h. 

-The  Problem,  p.  15. 
HOUR.     Spirit  strikes  the  h. —  Threnody,  p. 

197. 
HOUSE.     We  love  the  venerable  h. — Hymn, 

p.  200. 
HURL.     H.  wrong-doers  down. —  Worship,  p. 

183. 
HYSON.    One  scent  to  h. — Xenophanes,  p.  163. 

IDEAS.     Divine  I.  below. —  Ode  to  Beauty, 
p.  82. 

IMAGE.     Molded  an  i.— S.  of  Nat.,  p.  161. 
IMPROVISATION.      A    divine    i. —  Woodnotes, 

II.,  p.  138. 

INN.     I.  where  he  lodges  for  a  night. —  Wood- 
notes,  II.,  p.  140. 


io8 

INSIGHT.      To  i.  profounder. — Sphinx,  p.  10. 
INUNDATION.      I   hear  the   i.   sweet. —  Two 
Rivers,  p.  156. 

JOVE.     Walks  in  mask  almighty  J. ? —  May- 
Day,  p.  45 

J.  who  deaf  to  prayers. — Worship,  p.  183. 
JUD^AN.     In  a  J.  manger. — 5.  of  Nat.,  p.  161. 
JUSTICE.     J.    conquers    evermore. —  Volunta 
ries,  p.  212. 

See  Voluntaries,  p.  213. 
For  there's  no  sequestered  grot, 
Lone  mountain  tarn,  or  isle  forgot, 
But  J.  journeying  in  her  sphere, 
Daily  stoops   to   harbor  there. — Astrtza, 
P-  75- 

KEEP.      And   always  k.    us   so.  —  Ode   to 
Beauty,  p.  82. 

KING.     Conscious  Law  is  k.  of  kings. —  Wood- 
notes,  II.,  p.  139. 
KINGS.     God  said,   I    am  tired  of  k. — Bost. 

Hymn,  p.  203. 

KITE.     This  treacherous   k. — Monadnock,  p. 
152. 


109 


T  AKE.     Smote  the  1. — Beauty,^.  178. 

*-*  LAUGHTER.  L.  rich  as  woodland  thun 
der. —  Threnody,  p.  197. 

LAVISH.  L.,  1.  promiser. —  Ode  to  Beauty, 
p.  80. 

LAYERS.     Baked  the  1. — S.  of  Nat.,  p.  160. 

LEGS.     Among  the  1.  of  his  guardians  tall. — 

Experience,  p.  169. 
LIBERTY.     Found  1.  true   1. — Musketaq.,    p. 

1 66. 
LIGHT.     Through     L,    through    life.  —  Two 

Rivers. 
LIKE.     L.  and  unlike. — Experience,  p.  169. 

LILIES.  A  bunch  of  fragrant  1.  be. — Wood- 
notes,  II.,  p.  140. 

LION.  Love  laughs,  and  on  a  1.  rides. — /.  D. 
and  C.  Love,  p.  105. 

LITANIES.  L.  of  nations  came. — The  Problem 
p.  14. 

LORDS.  The  dear  dangerous  1. — Musketaq., 
p.  164. 

L.  of  life. — Experience,  p.  169. 

LORE.  L.  of  colors  and  of  sound. — Musketaq., 
p.  1 66. 


no 


LOVE.     Deep  1.  lieth  under 

These  pictures  of  time.  —  Sphinx,  p.  9. 

LOVER.     L.  rooted  stays.  —  Friendship,  p.  177. 
Have  I  a  1.  who  is  noble  and  free?  —  The 

Sphinx,  p.  10. 

Low.     L.  and  mournful  be  the  strain.  —  Volun 
taries,  p.  209. 


MAN-CHILD.    Them.-c.  glorious.—  5.  of 
Nat,  p.  1  60. 
MAPLE-  KEYS.      The   scarlet   m.-k.  betray.  — 

May  -Day,  p.  44. 

MAPLE-JUICE.     Drain  sweet  m.-j.  in  vats.  — 
Monadnock,  p.  145. 

MARL.    Granite  m.  and  shell.  —  S.  of  Nat.,  p. 

1  60. 
MASK.     Merry  is  only  a  m.  of  sad.  —  Waldein- 

samkeit,  p.  157. 
MASTER.     The  passive  M.  —  The  Problem,  p. 

15- 
MATTER.     Build    in    m.  home    for    mind.  — 

Wealth,  p.  170. 
MEAN.     It  was  not  for  the  m.  —  Give  all  to 

Love,  p.  84. 


Ill 


MEANINGS.     Their  noble  m.  are  their  pawns. 

— /.  D.  and  C.  Love,  p.  no. 
MELIORATING.    M.  stars. — S.  of  Nat.,  p.  159. 
MELODY.     A  m.  born  of  m. — Fate,  p.  88. 

MEMORIES.     Smacks  of  m.  far  away. — May- 
Day,  p.  42. 

MERRY.    M.  is  only  a  mask  of  sad. — Waldein- 
samkeit,  p.  157. 

METAMORPHOSIS.     The  rushing  m. — Wood- 
notes,  II.,  p.  133. 

MILL-ROUND.    M.-r.  of  our  fate. — Friendship, 
p.  177. 

MILLION-HANDED.     The  m.-h.  painter  pours. 
—  May-Day,  p.  47. 

MIND.     And  his  m.  is  the  sky, 

Than  all  it  holds  more  deep,  more  high. — 
Woodnotes,  II.,  p.  140. 

MINE.     M.  are  the  night  and  morning. —  S.  of 
Nat.,  p.  159. 

MINIATURE.     In  soft  m.  lies. — Sphinx,  p.  8. 
MIRE.     Leaves  us  in  the  m. — World-Soul,  p. 
25. 

MISERIES.   Our  insect  m. — Monadnock,^.  153. 
Mix.     M.  the  bowl  again. — S.  of  Nat.  p.  162. 


112 


MOAN.     And  joy  and  m. 

Melt  into   one. — /.  D.   and  C.  Love,   p. 
108. 

MOANINGS.     M.    of   the  tropic   sea. —  Volun 
taries,  p.  209. 

MONADNOCK.      She    stood    M.'s  head. — The 

Sphinx,  p.  ii. 
MORN.     Painting  with  m. — Problem,]).  15. 

MOURNFUL.    M.  be  the  strain. —  Voluntaries, 
p.  209. 

MUSIC.     Who   heard   the    starry  m. —  Ode  to 
Beauty,  p.  82. 

M.  pours  on  mortals. —  World-Soul,  p.  25. 

MUSKETAQUIT.      Thy   summer    voice,    M. — 
Two  Rivers,  p.  156. 

NAIL.     N.    the    wild-star    to    its    track. — 
Threnody,  p.  198. 

NAPHTHA.  Flowed  with  n.  fiery  sweet. — /.  D. 
and  C.  Love,  p.  107. 

NATURE.     Him  by  the  hand  dear  N.  took. — 
Experience,  p.  169. 

Out   from   the   heart  of   n.  rolled.  —  The 

Problem,  p.  14. 

Universal   N.    through. — Xenophanes,  p. 
163- 


NEW  HAMPSHIRE.     To  the  uplands  of  N.  H. 
— World-Soul,  p.  24. 

NEVADA.     N.  coin   thy  golden   crags. — Bost. 
Hymn,  p.  206. 

NILE.     One  over  against  the  mouths  of  N. — 
S.  of  Nat.,  p.  161. 

NOBILITY.     N.  more   nobly   to  repay. — For 
bearance,  p.  77. 

NOBLE.     I  will  have  never  a  n. —  Bost.  Hymn, 
p.  204. 

NYMPHS.    Shun  him,  n.,  on  the  fleet  horses  ! — 
/.  D.  and  C.  Love,  p.  100. 

LD.     Time  to  be  o. — Terminus,  p.  186. 
OLYMPIAN.     O.  bards  who  sung 
Divine  Ideas  below. — Ode  to  Beauty,  p.  82. 

OMENS.     The   youth  reads  o.— May-Day,  p. 
42. 

OMNIPRESENT.     O.  without  name.— Experi 
ence,  p.  169. 

ONWARD.    Right  o.  drive  unharmed. — Termi 
nus,  p.  187. 

OPAL-COLORED.     O.-c.  days.— May-Day,  p. 

55- 
8 


OPTION.  By  fate,  not  o. — Xenophanes,  p. 
163. 

OPULENT.  O.  soul,  mingled  from  the  gener 
ous  whole. —  Ode  to  Beauty,  p.  81. 

ORCHIS.  Where  in  far  fields  the  o.  grew. — 
Woodnotes,  I.,  p.  127. 

ORGAN.  The  silent  o.  loudest  chants. — Dirge, 
p.  189. 

PADDLE.  Or  dip  thy  p.  in  the  lake.— 
Woodnotes,  II.,  p.  135. 

P^EAN.  Aloft,  abroad  the  p.  swells. — Wood- 
notes,  II.,  p.  133. 

PALLID.  Thousand  p.  towns. — May-Day,  p. 
47- 

PAN.  Onward  and  on,  the  eternal  P. — Wood- 
notes,  II.,  p.  139. 

PARADISE.  The  point  is  P.  where  their  glances 
meet. — /.  D.  and  C.  Love,  p.  107. 

PAROQUET.  An  infinite  p. ,  Repeats  one  note. 
— Xenophanes,  p.  163. 

PARTHENON.     Earth  proudly  wears  the  P. — 

The  Problem,  p.  15. 
PAST.     P.,  Present,  Future  shoot. — /.  D.  and 

C.  Love,  p.  1 08. 


PEBBLE.  Shining  p.  of  the  pond. —  Ode  to 
Beauty,  p.  81. 

PEBBLES.  Flung  in  p.  well  to  hear. — Beauty, 
p.  178. 

PENTECOST.  And  ever  the  fiery  P.—T/ie  Prob 
lem,  p.  14. 

PEREMPTORY.  Free,  p.,  clear. — Merlin,  p. 
114. 

PERMANENCE.  Type  of  p. — Monadnock,  p. 
153- 

PIANO.    Tinkle  of  p.  strings. — Merlin,  p.  114. 

PICTURE.  All  was  p.  as  he  passed. —  Humble- 
bee,  p.  60. 

PICTURES.  These  p.  of  time. — The  Sphinx, 
p.  9. 

PINE.     I  that  to-day  am  a  p. — Woodnotes,  II., 

P-  139- 
PINE-TREE.     So  waved  the  p.-t.  through  my 

thought. — Woodnotes,  II.,  p.  130. 
PITS.     P.  of  woe. — Beauty,  p.  178. 
P.  of  air. —  S.  of  Nat.,  p.  159. 
PLAIN-DEALING.     P.-d.  nature  gave.—  Mus- 

ketaq.,  p.  166. 

PLUMULE.  Fled  the  last  p.  of  the  dark. — 
Monadnock,  p.  151. 


n6 

POLES.     By  their  animate  p. —  Sphinx,  p.  8. 
POOR.     The  outrage  of  the  p. — Bost.  Hymn, 
p.  203. 

POUNDING.  With  my  hammer  p. — Sea-Shore, 
p.  113. 

POWER'S.     Drops  from  P.  redundant  horn. — 

May-Day,  p.  45. 

Their  too  much  p. —  S.  of  Nat.,  p.  160. 
PRAYERS.     Deaf  to  p. — Worship,  p.  183. 
PRIG.     Little  p. — Fable,  p.  155. 
PRIME.     Obeyed  at  p. — Terminus,  p.  187. 
PULSE.     At  rich  men's  tables  eaten  bread  and 

p. — Forbearance,  p.  77. 

PUZZLED.     With   a  p.  look. — Experience,  p. 
169. 

PYRAMIDS.     Morning  opes  with  haste  her  lids, 
To  gaze  upon  the  p. — The  Problem,  p.  15. 

RAIN.     And  ages  drop  in  it  like  r.  —  Two 
Rivers,  p.  150. 

RAINDROP'S.     R.'s  a. —  Ode  to  Beauty,  p.  81. 
RANSOM.     Pay  r.  to  the  owner. —  Bost.  Hymn, 
p.  206. 

RAY.     No  r.  is  dimmed. — S.  of  Nat.,  p.  162. 


RECOUNT.  R.  the  numbers  well. — Ode  to 
Beauty,  p.  82. 

RECUT.  R.  the  aged  prints. — Bacchus,  p. 
119. 

RED  RIGHT  ARM.      Voluntaries,  p.  212. 

REDRESS.  R.  the  eternal  scales. — Volunta 
ries,  p.  213. 

REEF.     R.  the  sail. —  Terminus,  p.  187. 
REQUIEM.     The  master's  r. — Dirge,  p.  189. 

REVOLVES.  Visibly  r. — /.  D.  and  C.  Love, 
p.  108. 

RHODORA.  The  fresh  r.  in  the  woods. — Rho- 
dora,  p.  58. 

RIGHTS.  Eternal  R.,  Victors  over  daily 
wrongs. — Voluntaries,  p.  213. 

RlMS.  R.  the  running  silver  sheet. — May- 
Day,  p.  47. 

RINGS.  A  subtle  chain  of  countless  r. — May- 
Day,  p.  42. 

RIPPLES.  R.  in  rhymes  the  oar  forsake. — 
Woodnotes,  II.,  p.  135. 

RIVAL.  Why  thou  wert  there,  O  r.  of  the 
rose. —  The  Rhodora,  p.  58. 

RIVER-  GRAPES.  A  quest  of  r.-g. — Musketaq., 
p.  166. 


n8 


ROAD.     Love   delights   to  build  a  r. —  I.  D. 
and  C.  Love,  p.  105. 

ROBE.     R.  of  snow. — S.  of  Nat.,  p.  161. 

ROMANCE.     Grace  and  glimmer  of  r. — Art, 
p.  181. 

ROSE.     Speaks   all  languages  the  r. — May- 
Day,  p.  43- 

Through  thee  the  r.— Friendship,  p.  177. 
Fresh  r.  on  yonder  thorn. — S.  of  Nat., 
p.  162. 

ROUNDING.     Grim,  gray  r. —  Monadnock,  p. 
152. 

ROUTINE.     Smug  r. — Mithridates,  p.  33. 

RUDDER.     Man  the  r. — Terminus,  p.  187. 

RUDDY.     R.  drop  of  manly  blood. — Friend 
ship,  p.  177- 

SAILING.     S.  through  stars  with  all  their 
history. —  Monadnock,  p.  150. 
SALVE.     S.    my  worst  wounds. —  Musketaq., 

p.  1 66. 
SANDS.   S.  whereof  I'm  made.—  Ode  to  Beauty, 

p.  81. 
SANNUP.    Musketaq.,  p.  165. 


SCORNFUL.     And  his  eye  is  s., 

Threatening,  and  young. — Fate,  p.  89. 
SCOWL.     I  s.  on  him  with  my  cloud. — Monad- 
nock,  p.  152. 
SCROLL.     Rock  and  fire  the  s. — S.  of  Nat.,  p. 

160. 
SEA-SAND.     And  one  of  the  salt  s.-s. — S.  of 

Nat.,  p.  161. 
SECRET-SIGHT.     As   if  by  s.-s.  he  knew. — 

Woodnotes,  I.,  p.  127. 
SEER.     Forests. — Woodnotes,  I.,  p.  127. 
SEEMED.     It  seemed  that   Nature  could  not 

raise. — Woodnotes,  I.,  p.  127. 
SEEMING-SOLID.    S.  -  s  walls  of  use. — Bacchus, 

p.  118. 
SEETHE.     S.,  Fate!    the  ancient  elements. — 

S.  of  Nat.,  p.  162. 
SERVETH.     He  that  feeds  men  s.  few. — I.  D. 

and  C.  Love,  p.  1 1 1. 
SEVEN.     Pine  in  vain  the  sacred  S. — Brahma, 

P-  73- 
SHAMS.     I   tire   of  s.,  I   rush  to  Be. — Nun's 

Aspiration,  p.  185. 
SHARD.     Of  s.  and  flint  makes  pebbles  gay. — 

Two  Rivers,  p.  156. 


120 


SHEEP.    As  s.  go  feeding  in  the  waste. — Wood- 
notes,  II.,  p.  139. 

SHELL.     Masters  of  the  s. — Ode  to  Beauty,  p. 
82. 

SHUDDERED.     Cold  s.  the  sphere.— Sphinx, 
p.  9. 

SILVER.     S.  to  s.  creep  and  wind. — /.  D.  and 

C.  Love,  p.  109. 

S.  hills  of  heaven. —  Bacchus,  p.  117. 
SIN.     S.  piles  the  loaded  board. — Woodnotes, 

II.,  p.  130. 

SINCERITY.     Wrought  in  a  sad  s. — Problem, 
p.  14. 

SKY.    Through  thee  alone  the  s.  is  arched. — 
Friendship,  p.  177. 

SLAVE.    The  s.  is  owner,  and  ever  was. — Bost. 
Hymn,  p.  206. 

SLAYER.      If   the   red    s.    think    he    slays.— 
Brahma,  p.  73. 

SLIME.     Flood's  subsiding  s. — Woodnotes,  II., 

P-  133- 
SLOWSURE.      S.    Britain's    secular    might— 

Monadnock,  p.  151. 

SLUMBER.     In  s.  I  am  strong.— S.  of  Nat, 
p.  159. 


121 

SOBER.    S.  on  a  fund  of  joy. — Waldeinsamkeit, 
p.  157. 

SOLAR.     Secrets  of  the  s.  track. —  Merlin,  p. 

114. 

I  bide  in  the  s.  glory.— S.  of  Nat.,  p.  159. 
SPADE.     All  my  hurts  my  garden  s.  can  heal. 

—  Musketaq.,  p.  166. 

SPARKLE.     He  is  the  s.  of  the  spar.— Wood- 
notes,  II.,  p.  140. 

SPELLS.     The  world  is  the  ring  of  his  s.— 
Woodnotes,  II.,  p.  139. 

SPENDING.    I  hear  the  s.  of  the  stream. Two 

Rivers,  p.  156. 

SPENT.     S.  and  aged  things.— S.  of  Nat.,  p. 
1 60. 

SPHINX.   Uprose  the  merry  s. — Sphinx,  p.  11. 
SPIDERS.     Swinging   s.    silver    line.—  Ode  to 
Beauty,  p.  81. 

SPILLING.     S.   over    the    mountain- chains. — 
May-Day,  p.  47. 

SPIRES.     Through  all  the  s.  of  form.— May- 
Day,  p.  42. 

SPORTIVE.     S.  sun.— S.  of  Nat.,  p.  159. 
SPRING.     Daughter  of  Heaven  and  Earth,  coy 
S. — May-Day,  p.  41. 


122 


SPRUCE.      Pants    up    hither    the    s.    clerk. — 

Monadnock,  p.  151. 
STAFF.     Wave  thy  s.  in  air. — Woodnotes,  p. 

135- 

STAINLESS.     S.  soldier  on  the  walls. — Volun 
taries,  p.  212. 
STAR-DUST.      S.-d.  and   star    pilgrimages.— 

Woodnotes,  II.,  p.  133. 
STAR-FORM.      Why  the   s.-f.   she  repeats. — 

Woodnotes,  p.  127. 
STARS.      Fetch  her  s.   to  deck  her  hair. — 71? 

Rhea,  p.  22. 
STREAM.    Dark  s.  that  seaward  creeps. —  Cone. 

Fight,  p.  202. 

The  s.  I  love  unbounded  goes. — Two  Riv 
ers,  p.  156. 
SUBSTANCES.     S.  at  base  divided. — 7.  D.  and 

C.  Love,  p.  1 08. 

SUCCESSION.     S.  swift. —  Experience,  p.  169. 
SUCCORY.     S.  to  match  the  sky. — Humblebee, 

p.  60. 
SUN.     Will  take  the  s.  out  of  the  skies.—  Ode, 

p.  208. 

The   s.   himself  shines  heartily.— World- 
Soul,  p.  26. 


123 

SUN-BAKED.  Singing  in  the  s.-b  square. — 
Art,  p.  181. 

SUNBURNT.  S.  world  a  man  shall  breed. — 
S.  of  Nat.,  p.  162. 

SUN-PATH.  S.-p.  in  thy  worth. —  Friendship, 
p.  177. 

SUPERSOLAR.  Sparks  of  the  s.  blaze.—  Mer 
lin,  p.  114. 

SURFACE.  S.  and  Dream. — Experience,  p. 
169. 

SURGE.  S.  of  summer's  beauty. —  Musketaq, , 
p.  164. 

SURGING.  S.  sea  outweighs. —  Friendship,  p. 
177. 

SURPRISE.     Stair-way  of  s. — Merlin,  p.  115. 

SURVEYORS.  Time  and  Thought  were  my  s. 
— S.  of  Nat.,  p.  160. 

SWATHED.  S.  their  too  much  power. — S.  of 
Nat.,  p.  1 60. 

SWORD.     Masters  the  s. — Fate,  p.  89. 

SYNOD.  Airy  s.  bends. — /.  D.  and  C.  Love, 
p.  103. 


124 

Counted  my  t.— S.  of  Nat.,  p. 
A     159. 

TAP-ROOTS.  T.-r.  reaching  through  under 
the  Andes. —  Bacchus,  p.  117. 

TAYLOR.  T.,  the  Shakespeare  of  divines. — 
The  Problem,  p.  16. 

TEEM.  T.  with  unwonted  thoughts. — /.  D. 
and  C.  Love,  p.  103. 

TENDENCY.  T.  through  endless  ages. — Wood- 
notes,  II.,  p.  133. 

TENDERLY.  T.  the  haughty  day. —  Ode,  p. 
207. 

TENEMENTS.      Innumerable  t.  of  beauty. — 

Musketaq.,  p.  166. 

TENSE.  Affirmer  of  the  present  t. — Monad- 
nock,  p.  153. 

THANKS.     T.  to  the  morning  light. — World- 
Soul,  p.  24. 
THATCH.     T.  with  towns  the  prairie  broad. — 

World-Soul,  p.  26. 

THOUGHT'S.     T.    perilous,    whirling    pool. — 
Threnody,  p.  197. 
Out  of  T.  interior  sphere. — The  Problem, 

p.  15. 
T.  causing  stream. —  World-Soul,  p.  26. 


I25 

THREADING.     T.  dark  ways,  arriving  late.— 
Worship,  p.  183. 

THROB.     This   mound  shall  t. — Monadnock, 
p.  150. 

TIDE.     Time  and  t.  forever  run. — S.  of  Nat., 
p.  161. 

TINTS.     Refresh    the    faded   t.— Bacchus,  p. 
119. 

TIRE.     T.  of  globes   and  races. — S.  of  Nat., 
p.  161. 

TORRENT.     Rest  on  the  pitch  of  the  t. — S.  of 
Nat.,  p.  159. 

TORRENTS.     Wine  that  is  shed 
Like  the  t.  of  the  sun 
Up  the  horizon  walls. —  Bacchus,  p.  118. 
TOWN-SPRINKLED.     T.-s.   lands  that  be.— 
Monadnock,  p.  150. 

TRAILS.     To   hunt  upon    their  shining  t. — 
Forerunners,  p.  68. 

TRANSPARENCY.    He  hides  in  pure  t. — Wood- 
notes,  II.,  p.  140. 

TRAVAIL.     T.  in  pain  for  him.— S.  of  Nat., 
p.  161. 

TRIBES.     T.  my  house  can  fill.— S.  of  Nat., 
p.  159. 


126 


TROUBADOUR.     Comes    that    cheerful    T.— 

Monadnock,  p.  150. 
TRUE.     He  serves  all  who  dares  to  be  t. —  /. 

D.  and  C.  Love,  p.  in. 
TUMBLING.     T.    steep  in  the    uncontinented 

deep. — Monadnock,  p.  152. 
TUNE.    Nature  beats  in  perfect  t. — Woodnotes, 

II.,  p.  135. 
TWICE.     T.  I  have  molded  an  image.  —  S.  of 

Nat.,  p.  161. 

T  TNCONTINENTED.     U.    deep.—Monad- 
U      nock,  p.  152. 
UNIVERSE.     Beam  to  the  bounds  of  the  u. — 

Beauty,  p.  178. 
UNKNOWN.     Known  fruit  of  the  u. — Sphinx, 

p.  7- 
UNMAKE.     U.  me  quite.—  Ode  to  Beauty,  p. 

81. 
UNTAUGHT  STRAIN.     You  must  add  the  u.  s. 

-Fate,  p.  88. 

URN.    Fills  his  blue  u.  with  fire. — Ode,  p.  207. 
USE.     U.  and  surprise. — Experience,  p.  169. 


I27 


T  TAN.     On  thy  broad  mystic  v. — May-Day, 
*     p.  55- 

VAULT.     This    v.   which    glows    immense. — 
Woodnotes,  II.,  p.  140. 

VEGETABLE  GOLD. —  Guy,  p.  91. 

VICTIM.     V.  lying  low. — Voluntaries,  p.  212. 

VOICES.     Through   a   thousand  v. — Sphinx, 
p.  ii. 

1TTEB.     Play  not  in   Nature's  lawful  w.— 
V  V    My  Garden,  p.  174. 

WHEEL.     In  a  region   where   the  w.  —  /.  D. 

and  C.  Love,  p.  108. 
WHEELS.     W.  which  whirl  the  sun. — S.  of 

Nat.,  p.  161. 

WHIRL.    W.  the  glowing  wheels. — S.  of  Nat., 

p.  162. 

WHOLE.     The   linked   purpose   of   the   w. — 
Musketaq.,  p.  166. 

I  yielded  myself  to  the  perfect  w. — Each 

and  All,  p.  13. 

WlNGS.     I  am  the  w. —  Brahma,  p.  73. 
WINE.     Pouring  of  his  power  the  w. — Wood- 
notes,  II.,  p.  139. 


128 


WOODGODS.     The  partial  w. — Musketaq.,  p. 

164. 
WOOD-ROSE.     Loved  the  w.-r.  and  left  it  on 

its  stalk. — Forbearance,  p.  77. 

WOODS.     W.  at    heart   are   glad. — Waldein- 

samkeit,  p.  157. 
WORKETH.    W.  high  and  wise.—  Ode,  p.  208. 

WORLD.     W.  rolls  round,  mistrust  it  not. — 

May-Day,  p.  47. 

WORM.     Starred    eternal    w. — /.  D.  and  C. 
Love,  p.  1 08. 

Striving  to  be  man,  the  w. — May -Day,  p. 

42. 

WORSE.     Alike   to   him  the  better,  the  w. — 
Woodnotes,  II.,  p.  140. 

WREATH.     W.  shall   nothing    miss. — S.  of 

Nat,  p.  159. 
WRITE.     W.   the  past   in  characters. — S.  of 

Nat.,  p.  1 60. 

A^AWNS.     Y.    the    pit   of   the    Dragon.— 
•*•      Sphinx,  p.  9. 
YELLOW  -  BREECHED.      Y.-b.    philosopher. — 

Humblebee,  p.  60. 
YOUNG.     Always  find  us  y.—  Ode  to  Beauty, 

p.  82. 


I29 


YOUTH.     Y.  replies,  I  can.  —  Voluntaries,  p. 
211. 

7  GDI  AC.     On  the   half-climbed  i.—Thren- 
*~*     ody,  p.  198. 

ZONES.     Of  all  the  z.  and  countless  days. — 5. 
of  Nat. ,  p.  162. 


EMERSON 
AS   A   MAGAZINE   TOPIC. 

/rTNHE  following  list  of  magazine  and  peri- 
-*•  odical  essays  upon  Emerson  was  —  for 
the  most  part  —  contributed  to  the  Chicago 
Dial,  by  Mr.  Poole,  from  his  new  "Index  to 
Periodical  Literature,"  and  we  have  permis 
sion  to  use  it  here.  But  we  have  found  it 
necessary  to  append  a  number  of  recent  titles, 
to  bring  the  list  down  to  our  present  date : 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo  (R.  Buchanan),  Broadway, 
2:  223.— (J.  Burroughs)  Galaxy,  21:  254,543. 
—  (D.  M.  Colton)  Continental  Monthly,  i : 
49. —  (G.  Gilfillan)  Tait's  Magazine,  n.  s.,  15: 
17.  Same  article,  Living  Age,  16:  97. — (J. 
O'Connor)  Catholic  World,  27 :  90. —  (G.  Pren 
tice)  Methodist  Quarterly,  24:  357. — Dublin 
Review,  26:  152. —  North  British  Review,  47: 


132 


319- — Westminster  Review,  33  :  345. — Black- 
wood,  62:  643. —  (F.  H.  Underwood)  North 
American  Review,  130:  479.  —  (B.  Herford) 
Dial  (Ch.),  2:  114. 

Address,   July,    1838.     Boston   Quarterly,    i : 

500. 

Address  on   Forefathers'  Day,   1870.     (I.   N. 

Tarbox)  New  Englander,  30  :   175. 

and  his  writings  (G.  Barmby).  Howitt's  Jour 
nal^:  315. —  Christian  Review,  26  :  640. 

and  History.     Southern   Literary  Messenger, 

18:   249. 

and  Landor.     Living  Age,  52  :  371. 

and  the  Pantheists  (H.  Hemming).  New  Do 
minion,  8:  65. 

and  Transcendentalism.  American  Whig  Re 
view,  I  :  233.  See  Transcendentalism. 

and  Spencer  and  Martineau.     (W.  R.  Alger) 

Christian  Examiner,  84 :  257. 

Conduct  of  Life.     (N.  Porter)  New  Englander, 

19:  496. — Eclectic  Review,  46  :  365. 

Culture.     Fraser,   78:    I.     Same  art.,  Living 

Age,  98  :   358. 

English  Traits.     See  England. 

Essays.  Democratic  Review,  16:  589. —  Eclec 
tic  Magazine,  18:  546. —  Living  Age,  4:  139; 
23:  344. — (C.  C.  Felton)  Christian  Examiner, 
3o:  253. —  Eclectic  Review,  76  :  667. —  Boston 
Quarterly,  4 :  391. —  Biblical  Review,  1 :  148. — 


133 

Prospective  Review,  1 :  232. —  Tait's  Magazine 
n.  s.,  8:  666. 

-Home  and  Haunts  of.  (F.  B.  Sanborn)  Scrib- 
ner,  17:  496. 

-  Lectures  at  Manchester.     Hewitt's  Journal,  2  : 
370- 

-  Visit  to  Scotland.     Douglas  Jerrold's  Shilling 
Magazine,  April,  1848. 

-  Lectures  and  Writings  of.     Every  Saturday,  3  : 
680;  4:  381. 

-Letters  and  Social  Aims.  International  Re 
view,  3  :  249. 

-New  Lectures.     Christian  Review,  15:  249. 

-Poems.  (C.  E.  Norton)  Nation,  4:  430. — 
American  Whig  Review,  6  :  197. —  (C.  A.  Bar- 
tol)  Christian  Examiner,  42:  255. —  Southern 
Literary  Messenger,  13:  292. —  Brownson,  4: 
262. —  Democratic  Review,  1 :  319. —  Christian 
Remembrancer,  15  :  300. 

-  Prose  Works.     Catholic  World,  1 1 :  202. 

-  Recent  Lectures   and  Writings.     Fraser,  75 : 
586.     Same  article,  Living  Age,  93  :  581. 

-Representative  Men.     (C.  A.  Bartol)  Christian 

Examiner,  48 :  314. —  Eclectic  Review,  95  :  568. 

—  British  Quarterly,  n  :  281. 
•Society    and    Solitude.     Fraser,  82 :    i. — (D. 

March)  New  Englander,  8  :    186. 
•Writings.    (F.  H.  Hedge)  Christian  Examiner, 

38 :  87. — (J.  W.  Alexander)  Princeton  Review, 

13  :    539- 


134 

Chambers's  Journal,  21,  382. 

Emerson   number  of  Boston  Literary  World, 

May,  1 88 1. 

North  American  Review,  July,  1882. 

Lippincott's  Magazine,  November,  1882. 

Atlantic  Monthly,  August,  1882. 

Harpers'  Monthly,  July  and  September,  1882. 

Baldwin's  Monthly,  December,  1881. 

Demorest's  Monthly,  July,  1882. 

Harpers'  Weekly,  June  10,  1882. 

The  Century,  July,  1882. 

The  Modern  Review,  October,  1882. 

Fortnightly  Review,  June,  1882. 

London  Illustrated  News,  May  6,  1882. 

London  Graphic,  May  6,  1882. 

London  Athenaeum,  May  6,  1882. 

London  Academy,  May  6,  1882. 

Gentleman's  Magazine,  November,  1882. 

Colburn's  New  Monthly  Magazine,  December, 

1882. 

Various  articles  upon  Emerson  have  also 
appeared  in  French,  German,  and  other  con 
tinental  magazines;  but,  as  we  cannot  com 
mand  the  dates  necessary  to  make  an  account 
of  them  reasonably  complete,  we  forego  the 
attempt. 


PRESS    OF    THEO.    L.     DE    VINNE    A    CO.    N. 


